Avarice
by Spun
Summary: "Magnus had said warlocks were avaricious, possessive beings. Well, Alec wasn't a warlock, but he'd be damned if he let anyone touch the best thing that had ever happened to him." The one where warlocks are being murdered, Magnus is a target, and Alec really isn't supposed to be getting involved (but does anyway).
1. Chapter One

**Avarice**

**Disclaimer: **_The Mortal Instruments _belongs to Cassandra Clare, not me.

**Warnings: **As a blanket warning for the whole fic, there's one mention of theoretical suicide, and one veiled reference to something that could be either suicide or self-harm.

**Notes: ***barrels back into the TMI fandom on a shining white unicorn*

This was supposed to be a one-shot, but it… sort of got away from me, so it's four chapters total and one will be posted each day. Consider it AU post-CoG – I didn't feel like handwaving everything that happened during CoFA and CoLS – and it contradicts one of the extra bits Clare posted on her website, but I don't care very much about anything that's not in the actual books. xD Enjoy!

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**For Anita**, my self-appointed beta reader, idea-bouncer, and internet soulmate, who is directly responsible for the existence of this fic (along with some of the plot).

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**WALKED OUT THE BACK DOOR OF THE CLUB AND RANDOMLY GOT ATTACKED BY A GUY WITH A SWORD. :( -J**

You've got to be kidding me, Alec thought.

It was just shy of three a.m. and Alec was quietly languishing in the kitchen of the Institute, feeling rather pathetic and reinforcing his patheticism through the most gloomy of solitary activities – drinking. Had Magnus been around, he would've scolded him for wallowing in self-pity, then scolded him for drowning his sorrows in off-brand vodka. The man was morally opposed to cheap liquor. Still, he was neither present nor answering his phone, and Alec was having a crisis (he wasn't sure if he was actually having a crisis, but it was a good excuse for consuming gratuitous amounts of alcohol), so he'd do as he pleased and the little voice in the back of his head that sounded like a certain warlock could just shut up.

"Mrrrowl?"

"You can shut up too," he told Church, who blinked at him and stuck his face into the vodka. Alec quickly rescued the bottle from a tragic shattered death as the cat violently backpedaled, hissing and swiping at his nose and making horrible faces. "I know, it's god-awful." The liquid tasted like rubbing alcohol and didn't smell much better – it boasted a burning, antiseptic scent that reminded him of the infirmary, of broken glass and torn skin and blood bubbling up like lava through cracks in the earth. And wasn't _that_ just the sort of metaphorical brilliance only someone who'd been trying to get wrecked on the stuff in the very back of the liquor cabinet would come up with. He really needed to stop before the floor turned into a rollercoaster ride.

"You realize drinking alone in a dark room is just about the most depressing thing you can do, right?" The voice broke into Alec's contemplation of the kitchen tiles. Reluctantly, he raised his head off his arms. There was a pale, tangle-haired wraith drifting into the room, carrying a cell phone and looking a bit annoyed. She flicked the light switch without warning, throwing bright spots into Alec's vision, and plunked herself onto an empty stool. "Let me guess – you're waiting for Jace too?"

"I am now. Did he send you a text message about a swordsman?"

"Yep. All in capital letters?"

"Yeah."

Isabelle laughed and dropped her phone onto the island. "At least he's consistent." Suppressing a yawn, she picked up the bottle, scrutinized the label, shrugged, and took a swig. Then she made an indescribably disgusted noise and shoved it onto the counter behind her, out of Alec's reach, which was probably for the best. "I think people use that to clean their cars. Why the hell are you drinking that crap?"

"It's familiar," Alec said, settling his cheek on his folded arms again. Holding his head up took too much work.

"Is it? I never took you for the drinking type, you know," she said. "I've always assumed you had the alcohol tolerance of an eleven-year-old girl."

Alec rolled his eyes. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"Really, I've never seen you drink _anything_. I started getting wasted at parties when I was fifteen."

"I know." He'd had to come and take her home more times than he cared to count until she eventually learned to exercise a little restraint. "See, when I was thirteen, I drank almost half a bottle of that stuff." He waved at the vodka bottle. "Somehow I didn't get alcohol poisoning, but for three days I was sicker than I've ever been in my life."

Isabelle's brow furrowed for a moment, and then she brightened. "I remember that! Hodge said you had the flu."

"That's what I told him. He didn't believe me for a second. I think he was trying to teach me some kind of lesson by letting me suffer." It worked, sort of – Alec hadn't touched anything remotely alcoholic for five solid years, but he'd progressed to other, equally unhealthy coping methods, which might not have been what Hodge had intended.

"He _would_ do that." Her phone buzzed; she grabbed it off the countertop and, without taking her eyes from the screen or fingers from the keypad, said, "So why are you sitting here –"

Fortunately, before she could demand an explanation for Alec's semi-inebriated state, the geriatric rattle of the elevator caught Isabelle's attention and her head swiveled around to face the hallway. "That'd better be them. I want to go back to bed. JACE!" she shouted as the gates creaked open.

Jace wandered into view a moment later, flushed and rumpled and grinning like a loon. His t-shirt was ripped from left shoulder to right hip, but there was no blood staining the fabric, and he appeared far too pleased with himself to be nursing any serious injuries. "Why're you still up?" he asked, lounging against the doorframe.

"As if you don't know," Isabelle said.

Jace looked blank. Alec put in the effort to sit up, cradling his chin in his palm. "Listen," he said, "I am _just _drunk enough to be unsure exactly how drunk I am, so you're going to have to explain in very simple terms – what the _hell_ did you do?"

Waving an inactive seraph blade around (because god forbid he go to a Downworld nightclub without any visible weaponry dangling from his belt), Jace indignantly said, "You speak as if I had something to do with it. I assure you I'm absolutely blameless in this situation. Blameless, I say!"

"Calm down," came a voice from somewhere behind Jace's shoulder. "And move it, you're blocking the doorway." Jace leaned to one side, creating enough of a gap for Clary to squeeze through. She looked almost as debauched as Jace, her cheeks pink, her hair a sweaty mess clinging to her neck. Alec had a sudden, vivid mental image of what they might've been getting up to in the elevator, and wished he had the vodka back so he could try scrubbing his brain with it. "Are you talking about Jace's "swordsman"?" Clary said, forming mocking air quotes with her fingers.

"Is it bullshit, then?" Isabelle asked. "It sounded like bullshit."

"You wound me, woman," Jace said. "It was not, as you say, _bullshit_. There were too many people by the front door, so we left the club out the back, and when I got into the alley, a guy with a giant overcompensating sword turned around and tried to cut me in twain. Then he ran for it."

Isabelle gave a jaw-cracking yawn and raked her fingers through her hair. "Yeah, still sounds like bullshit to me. Are you sure he didn't have, like, a pocketknife or something? It'd be embarrassing to get sliced up by a guy with a pocketknife. We'll understand if you exaggerated."

"It was a sword, dammit!" Jace exclaimed, swinging the seraph blade haphazardly. Alec was starting to think that his brother was far and away the most intoxicated person in the room. "I demand silence from the uneducated peasantry!"

"I didn't see it," Clary offered. "I was busy getting crushed in the crowd – thanks for the help, Jace – and when I got outside, he was swearing a lot and his shirt was torn but there was no one else there."

"I told you, he ran off. Maybe he was intimidated by the sight of my powerful abs."

"See, I can believe that the guy had a sword," Alec said. "You were in _Brooklyn_ – there's all sorts of freaks there. What I _don't_ believe is that you didn't provoke him somehow."

"Blameless," Jace said again. The seraph blade clattered onto the island as he threw himself onto a stool, sighing. Isabelle quickly swiped it and sent it to join the vodka bottle. "Well, whatever. You'll see. You'll all see."

"I bet we will." Isabelle patted him on the arm and slid off her seat. "I really need to get some sleep. How'd that dress work out for you, by the way?" she said to Clary.

Clary sighed and tugged on the hem of her alarmingly short dress. It was a glimmery green color that made Alec think of the small snakes that used to take cover in the overgrown garden behind the Institute, the ones he'd played with when he was little until his cat killed too many of them. "One of these days," Clary said, "you're going to realize that your clothes _don't fit me_."

"It's not my fault you don't own anything sexy. If you don't like it, then take it off."

"In the kitchen?"

"Sure," Isabelle said. "We're both girls, Jace has seen you in less, and Alec's not interested."

If Jace's eyebrows got any higher, they were going to achieve orbit. "I like where this is going."

_That_ was Alec's cue to leave. He turned around on the stool and shoved his feet into his boots. "Well, if nobody's dying from sword-related injuries tonight, then I'm going."

"Late-night booty call with your hot boyfriend?" Jace said.

"That's immensely disturbing, coming out of your mouth," Alec said, knotting the laces, "and _no_. One of Magnus's friends is supposed to visit and I should probably be there when she breaks into the apartment."

Isabelle crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a _look_. "And you're just going to leave us here to deal with him?" she said, nodding towards Jace.

"He's not as drunk as he's pretending to be," Clary said. Jace smirked lazily. "You were perfectly fine a few minutes ago while we…"

Jace's smirk erupted into a full-blown leer. "While we were _what_?" he wheedled. "Go ahead, I don't care if they know."

Flushing crimson, Clary threw a hair clip at him. Jace caught it in midair, which was all the confirmation Alec needed. "He's fine," he said.

Isabelle sighed. "Right, right, go on then. I'm going to sleep – if I can ignore Mom and Dad fighting _really quietly_ in their bedroom. They've been at it for ages."

Alec's stomach did something hideously unpleasant, and it wasn't caused by the alcohol. Occasionally, he wished his parents would just admit their marriage was a mistake, divorce, and get it over with – instead they saw some need to keep up this ridiculous farce and pretend there was nothing going on whenever their kids were around. This led to a lot of near-silent arguments behind closed doors. They were never quiet enough, though, and even when the words weren't audible, the tones were a clue that they weren't having a pleasant conversation about kittens. He really had no idea why they still bothered. Alec had known they hated one another for most of his life, even if he didn't know why, and he thought maybe the fighting would be easier to swallow if he had any idea what they were fighting about.

Given the conversation he'd had about an hour ago, he had a sick feeling that maybe it was _him_. And that was as good a reason as any to get the hell out of here. He shouldered his way past Jace (still gleefully tormenting Clary, who looked torn between laughing and beating him to death with the abandoned seraph blade), then paused in the doorway, looked back at his sister. He wanted to say something, anything, to reassure her, but he couldn't find the words. "Sleep in the library," he finally said.

Isabelle's voice followed him down the corridor – "Just because _you_ sleep there all the time does _not_ make that couch comfortable!"

* * *

Magnus's apartment was dark and desolate when Alec let himself inside. Even Chairman Meow, whose insatiable need for adventure led him to attempt escape almost every time the door opened, burrowed deeper into a blanket on the couch and hardly twitched an ear in Alec's direction. Cold-shouldered by a cat. This really _was_ a miserable sort of night. He kicked off his shoes and padded along the hall to the bedroom, which, as usual, looked like ground zero of a department store explosion. Alec picked his way across the floor with practiced ease until he reached his destination – Magnus's closet. While he was fairly certain it didn't _actually_ contain a magic portal to Narnia, it was still an unholy mess of clothing and boxes and things Alec had never seen before in his lifetime, so he quickly snagged the plastic tub where he kept his stuff and slammed the doors before anything unnatural leapt out at him.

Nothing in the bin was more comfortable than the jeans he had on now. He gave up, took off his sweater, and then plummeted to the mattress like a comet striking Earth. Half of the blankets were more than an arm's-length away, but Alec gathered the remaining covers to him and started building a cocoon. Magnus had once likened the way Alec wrapped himself up to a spider spinning webbing around a captured insect, which might've been funny if Alec wasn't a card-carrying arachnophobe. He'd retaliated by dragging Magnus down and trying to smother him in the comforter, heedless of Magnus's maniacal laughter, and in the end neither of them had made it out of bed for another two hours.

Once he felt sufficiently swaddled, he curled up and finally closed his eyes. He hadn't been sleeping well lately – at some point between Brocelind Plain and coming back to New York, he'd developed an extraordinary capacity for nightmares that was impressive even by Shadowhunter standards. Most of them had the same overused plotlines, but that didn't make them any less, well, _nightmarish_. Getting a proper night's sleep had become an effort that rivaled a trip to Mordor. Being in Magnus's apartment sometimes helped, though. There was something about the place that just screamed _safe_.

He'd almost begun to drift off when there was a _bang_ from the other side of the apartment.

Right, Alec thought, forcing his eyes back open. He'd known Antoinette was coming over, so why had he bothered trying to sleep?

He had another moment of blessed peace as quiet footsteps approached, and briefly wished he was drunk enough to deal with Antoinette's particular brand of insanity before she opened the door. "So Magnus isn't here yet?" she asked, peering around the room like she expected him to pop out from beneath a pile of clothes in a shower of glitter. In all fairness, it was something Magnus would do.

"No."

"Pity." Antoinette wheeled around and exited the room and Alec allowed himself to entertain the possibility of her leaving him alone to sleep. He couldn't be that lucky, though, because she returned a moment later, a small container in hand, and plunked herself down on the edge of the mattress. "I suppose I'm stuck hanging out with you, then."

"You could go hang out with Chairman Meow," he suggested.

Antoinette opened the container. From the smell, she was eating the leftover spaghetti from Magnus's fridge. Alec decided not to tell her how old it was. "But you're sleeping with Magnus," she pointed out. "And I _used_ to be sleeping with Magnus, so I figured we could have a nice chat and compare notes."

Alec said something very rude which was thankfully too muffled in the comforter for her to make out, but she laughed anyway. "No? All right, then."

Resigning himself to her presence for the time being, Alec rolled onto his stomach and buried his head in the pillow. "How did you even get in?"

"Flew."

"Climbed the fire escape?"

Antoinette huffed. "What's the point in having wings if they're not strong enough to hold my weight?" she groused, stabbing her fork into the spaghetti. Alec turned his head just enough to glance at her over his shoulder. He'd always thought Antoinette had rather a lot of hair for someone so short – it was even longer than Isabelle's and usually a mass of dark curls that looked like an enormous bird's nest, but then he realized when she left it loose, it _almost_ concealed how misshapen her back looked with her clothes pulled over her folded wings. He had never actually seen her wings, since she didn't like to flaunt them. And evidently they had no use beyond looking pretty and being a nuisance, which was unfortunate. Magnus had gotten off lightly. _He_ could just tell people he wore colored contact lenses and leave it at that.

"I'm going to sleep," Alec said. "Don't steal anything."

"You ruin all my fun."

Alec had no intention of really falling asleep, because he didn't trust Antoinette to not go poking around in his memory while he was out. She didn't seem interested in tormenting him, though. She was gazing at the bench of Magnus's vanity like it held all the secrets of the universe, mechanically twirling spaghetti around her fork, occasionally missing her mouth entirely. He hadn't any idea what had captivated her attention, but she wasn't talking anymore, so he tucked his face into his arms and let himself sink into that quiet, shadowy place between awake and asleep.

Minutes later – at least, it _felt_ like minutes later, but Alec suspected it had been considerably longer – there were more voices in the hallway, a floorboard wailed, and the door swung yet again. "Why am I surprised to find you in my bed?"

Alec cracked an eye open in time to see Antoinette give Magnus a twinkly little wave. "You should _never_ be surprised to find me in your bed. I ate your spaghetti, by the way."

"That's fine. It was about three weeks old," Magnus said, leaning against the wall. "I was waiting for it to develop an ecosystem."

Pulling a face, Antoinette snapped the cover onto the container and gave Alec a dirty look. "_He_ didn't tell me that."

"He was probably hoping it would kill you. I know I am." The harshness to his words were belied by the sparkle in his eyes. Alec knew Magnus liked Antoinette far too much to wish death on her – although he'd admitted that the reason they'd broken up after two years was because they couldn't cohabitate without plotting how to kill one another and make it look like an accident. Apparently, Alec was much easier to live with. That was a nice thought, and when Magnus looked at him, he smiled tiredly and tried to decide whether he wanted to go back to sleep or kick Antoinette out, drag Magnus into bed, and have his way with him. He was still a little drunk. His blood felt much too warm.

"Is Alistair here?" Antoinette said, jabbing Alec's leg with her fork like she knew he was thinking impure thoughts. She probably did, too, he thought grumpily.

"He is, and you'd better hurry up and get out there before he decides to leave."

Alec yawned. "Is this something I need to be awake for?"

"Technically, no," Magnus said, "but…." He lifted his hand, a white paper cup dangling from his fingertips, and grinned. "I brought you coffee."

Damn. Magnus knew the way to his heart, and it was caffeine. While Alec debated the merits of movement, Antoinette said, "Did you find him?"

"Yes."

There was a curious hopefulness in her voice when she asked, "Alive?"

Magnus leveled an unreadable look at her. "You know the answer to that."

Whatever was going on sounded serious, so as Antoinette got up, so did Alec, detangling himself from the covers and holding a hand out expectantly. Magnus just waved the cup tantalizingly and practically _skipped_ out of view. "That's cheating," Alec complained. He scooped up his sweater, yanked it on, and left the bedroom.

He was the last person to reach the apartment's main room. A couch and two squashy armchairs were gathered around the fireplace, which boasted a cluster of crackling blue flames. One of the chairs was occupied by a slender, brown-haired warlock in a dark coat. Alec had met Alistair exactly once, for about three minutes, but there was something memorable about the man despite his unremarkable appearance – maybe it was because Alec got the distinctive impression that Alistair didn't like him. He could live with that, it just bothered him a bit since he had no idea what he'd done. Knotting his fingers together, Alec edged around him and seated himself on the couch next to Magnus, who obligingly handed him the paper cup. Alec looked at the bright green logo and scowled.

"Don't give me that face," Magnus said, propping his feet up on the low table in front of the hearth.

"This isn't coffee," Alec said mournfully, "it's a _lie_."

"Your irrational hatred of Starbucks is really not the topic of conversation right now," Antoinette said. She threw herself into the remaining armchair and looked from Magnus to Alistair. "So, he's dead?"

"Yes," Alistair said.

"I knew it!" she exclaimed triumphantly. "I was right. I _told_ you he was dead." For someone who was right, Antoinette didn't look at all happy, and she slumped in the chair like she wanted to melt into the gap between cushion and back. "We were supposed to meet for breakfast and Jackson didn't show and he's always so fucking _punctual_. He didn't even call. I knew it."

For a minute, no one said anything. Magnus looked pensive, Antoinette looked forlorn, and Alistair's face was inexpressive. Alec kept quiet not just because he had no idea who they were talking about, but also because he strongly doubted his opinion was welcome. This was their business and he wouldn't even be included if Magnus hadn't dragged him along. Story of his life. His coffee exhaled a cloud of steam as he popped the top off, braced his feet on the edge of the couch, and balanced the cup on his knees.

Antoinette closed her eyes, rubbing her hand across her mouth. "Where'd you find him?"

"Behind that horrible Thai restaurant in Park Slope," Magnus said. "He was dead for a few days. He'd been magicked, but a couple of werewolves picked up on the smell."

She made a sound that might have been a laugh, under other circumstances. "And to think I never ate there because of all the murders. Ironic." There was another pregnant pause before she sat upright again and sighed. "All right, whatever, doesn't matter. Have either of you seen Marlene lately?"

"Hold on, hold on," Alec said, cutting Magnus's reply off. "This guy's dead and it just… doesn't matter?"

The three warlocks shared a look. "If it was anyone else," Magnus finally said, "it would, but Jackson was…"

"He was a rubbish warlock," Alistair muttered into his mug.

"And a huge asshole," Antoinette added. "My friend, but an asshole nevertheless."

"It's not inconceivable to think that someone with a grudge took him out. A child could've done it." Magnus picked up his own untouched coffee and tucked a bit of Alec's hair behind his ear. "Don't worry about it."

"It's not Shadowhunter business, anyway," Alistair said, so sharply that Alec – who had a deplorable habit of avoiding eye contact with anyone who made him uncomfortable – looked up and stared at him.

"I'm not –"

"Oh, hush, you." Antoinette stretched out a leg and poked Alistair's arm with her bare toes. Alec momentarily wondered where her shoes had gone – or if she'd even been wearing any to start with. "It's not like he's going to go round up a posse of Nephilim to storm Brooklyn looking for a murderer. And if he _does_, we'll just have to speed up our timeline for the insurrection."

Now Alec was staring at _her_. "What insurrection?"

"You weren't supposed to _tell_ him, Antoinette," Alistair admonished.

"Whoops," she said mildly. "Hold still a moment, I'll just wipe that from your memory." She slid off the chair, leaned forward, reached for Alec's face –

If Magnus hadn't grabbed the back of his shirt, Alec's reflexive lunge would've taken him right into the fireplace. "They're joking," he said. "And you quit it, Annie, he's pretty and I don't want him burnt."

"Don't call me Annie," Antoinette said, settling into the armchair again with a Cheshire Cat grin. Alec wanted to kill her. While he wouldn't have said that he _liked_ Antoinette (because he wasn't entirely sure that he did), and though he liked her more than he did Alistair, she was downright unnerving when she wanted to be. She might not have been particularly prodigious when it came to regular magic, she had one specific, specialized skill – unrolling peoples' minds like they were balls of yarn. Where Magnus could block memories, Antoinette could erase them so thoroughly that even the Silent Brothers would never know they were there; conversely, she could fabricate entire lives and insert them into someone's head without the victim ever noticing. And that was nothing compared to her unmatchable ability to extract information. She'd worked for the Clave for a while in the early 1800s, interrogating prisoners, which might have accounted for her unusual benevolence towards Shadowhunters. But benevolence or not, Alec really wanted her to stop joking about screwing around with his memory. It creeped him out to know she could've done something to his brain and he'd probably never realize it. Magnus slipped his hand up Alec's sweater, brushing his knuckles over the small of his back, and Alec forced himself to stop glaring at her. Judging by her expression, she didn't care anyway.

"Well, if we're done here, I have work to do." Alistair set the mug down on the table and stood up, dusting off his hands. "Before I go, though – _have_ you seen Marlene lately?"

The grin fell right off Antoinette's face. "No," she said quietly. "No, I haven't, and I should."

"I haven't either, but I'm going to drop by tomorrow. See if there's anything I can do," Magnus said. Almost absentmindedly, he raised his arm, curled it around Alec's neck, tugged him closer. Alec rested his chin on Magnus's shoulder. "I'll see you later."

"I should go too." Antoinette hopped to her feet and stretched. "I left Rico alone with this vampire chick who's been trying to get me to fuck with her sister's memory for half-price and he's probably crying and cursing my name by now." She followed Alistair to the door, waggling her fingers at them. "Toodles!"

The door slammed. Magnus's fingers traced the rune on the back of Alec's neck. Alec caught himself wondering about Antoinette's shoes again – she still hadn't been wearing any, and it wasalmost _winter_.

"Do you know how she got in?" Magnus eventually asked. Alec nodded towards the far side of the room. Magnus got up, crossed the floor, and cranked the window above the fire escape open. A whispered word, and the clear view of the skyline was replaced by a shimmering blue rectangle that curved inwards ever so slightly. "She _bent_ my ward," Magnus said, sounding put-out. He began tapping the corners of the ward, sending a bell-like ring echoing around the room, but Alec had seen him do this a number of times and quickly lost interest. As Magnus pushed his ward back into its proper shape, Alec tried to figure out if there was anything resembling real coffee beans in his drink.

"I don't know about you," he said, "but I haven't gotten any sleep, so I'm going back to bed."

Magnus shut the window with a _clang_. "Bed sounds good to me." With a sweep of his hand, the table was cleared of his cup, Alistair's mug, and the coffee Alec had written off as a bad job. "Come along then, darling, it's disgusting o'clock. Sleep time."

* * *

They didn't end up sleeping. Alec thought he probably should've seen that coming.

The room was like a sauna and the blanket Magnus had thrown over them both was only exacerbating the feeling of being trapped in an oven, but Alec was still made of jelly and didn't have the energy to do anything about it. He barely made the effort to peel his damp hair off his face before shoving his arms back under the pillow. He was on his stomach, Magnus draped across his back, head between his shoulderblades. His chin was drilling into Alec's spine. Another thing Alec didn't feel like dealing with. He let his mind wander down more important paths – like trying to figure out where his jeans went. If Magnus had sent them to China again just to get them out of the way, Alec was going to strangle him. Those were his favorite pair.

"So," Magnus murmured, nuzzling Alec's skin, "what happened?"

"Hmm?"

"You don't usually drink without reason."

"Oh." Of course Magnus had picked up on that, even if Alec had been borderline sober by the time they had forgotten why they'd really gone to bed. "Had a fun conversation with my claustrophobically narrow-minded father." Magnus made a sympathetic noise. "It was just the usual – he implied that my poor life choices reflect badly on him and that my life would be so much better if I dumped you and got a proper girlfriend. I told him I'd date Aline, then. He didn't think it was funny."

"Neither do I," Magnus said. "Am I missing some relevant backstory?"

"A bit." Alec yawned, pulled his arms from under the pillow, and stretched them out above his head. "A couple months ago while we were all in Alicante – sometime _after_ she tried to suck my brother's tonsils out – she and I were talking and she admitted some things, and _I _admitted some things, and, well… we kind of made a deal. If things didn't work out with – just everything, really – then in a couple of years we'd get together to shut everyone else up and then do whatever the hell we wanted. But now I have you, and Aline got a girlfriend, and my father knows all that, so he didn't think it was funny."

Magnus breathed a long, slow breath against Alec's back. "Good for her, but I don't know if that's funny, love. I think it's depressing."

"That too," Alec admitted.

Chairman Meow's arrival was heralded by a thunderous _rrrrrrriiip_ as he merrily tore his toy mousie in half and started snuffling around in the catnip spilling from its severed head. "Don't eat that, crackhead," Magnus said, waving his hand. The catnip vanished, leaving behind a spicy-sweet scent and a pitifully meowing feline. "Oh, get over it. Come here." He reached out towards Chairman Meow and received a look of deepest contempt for his trouble.

"You ruined his life," Alec said. Chairman Meow climbed right over Magnus and settled down on the mattress next to Alec's hip, purring.

"Reduced to a speed bump by my own cat."

"It's not my fault he likes me better."

"Animal magnetism," Magnus said, and laughed. "It's high time you admit you're attractive, Alexander."

"Mmgrf." And there it was again, Magnus purring a word Alec wasn't particularly fond of. It wasn't his name he disliked so much as the way people said it – _Alexander_ cracked between his mother's teeth like shards of ice, was practically synonymous with _disappointment_ when it came from his father's lips, but Magnus… he stretched out the syllables and rolled them around in his mouth as if they were something to be savored. The only reason Alec hadn't told him to cut it out was because Magnus always sounded like he was lovingly caressing something he couldn't have.

Alec didn't move for a while, sleepily watching the progression of Magnus's hand as it crept up his left arm. The warlock's fingers paused, brushed over the bracelet on Alec's wrist. It was simple, a loop of wooden spheres interrupted here and there by black and red beads – Max had given it to him a few years ago as a birthday present. He'd been very insistent that it would 'protect' him, which was a sweet, little-kid sort of thing to say. Alec hadn't taken it off in almost three months.

"What did you do to your hand?" Magnus asked. Alec was tired enough that it took him a moment to realize Magnus was speaking of at the scar on his palm, the one that was matched by another on the back of his hand.

"Someone stabbed me with a seraph blade, once."

Magnus _twitched_. "God. Better you than me. We usually channel our magic through our hands – if you put something through my hand like that, you could _cripple_ me, magically speaking."

"I'll keep that in mind if I ever need to cripple you. Which I will, if my jeans aren't still in the country."

"Relax, they're over there." Magnus waved at 'over there'. Alec didn't bother to check – he didn't care all that much so long as they were within reach when he decided to get dressed. "And don't change the subject."

"It's really not an interesting story," Alec insisted.

"Tell me anyway."

Sighing, Alec thumped his chin against the pillow and stared at the star-shaped crack on the maroon wall. "There was a girl."

"Oooh. Wait, hang on a second." Magnus propped himself up on an elbow and flicked his fingers at the window, opening it a fraction of an inch and bathing them both in cool, early December air. The breeze dried the sweat on Alec's forehead and behind his ears. "All right, continue," Magnus said, collapsing across Alec's back again.

Magnus wasn't going to let this go, so Alec decided he might as well tell him and get it over with so he could get some sleep. "It actually started before the girl. I was… almost fifteen, I think, and there was this vampire running around who'd killed three Shadowhunters in the past month. We didn't know who he was, and nobody had seen anything, so we were all just on edge all the time, waiting for somebody _else_ to die – and then this girl showed up at the Institute one day."

"Is this going to be a _romantic_ story?" Magnus said slyly.

"No. Quit interrupting." Alec turned his head to the side to look out the window. The sky was the same color as his favorite sweater, a pale, cloudy grey that inevitably brought some sort of precipitation. He wished it would snow. "She was a little older than I was, and she was a werewolf – her name was Jaina. She'd seen the vampire murder the last Shadowhunter, so she knew what he looked like, but she ran away and hid until she was sure he hadn't seen her. And then she came to us. She'd noticed that he had a scar next to his eye, so with that knowledge, we asked around – well, Jace and Isabelle did, to be honest – and eventually we found the coven he used to belong to."

"The girl, darling."

Alec could _hear_ Magnus grinning. He knew he shouldn't have brought her up first. "Right, Jaina. She was just nice to me, okay? It wasn't as if I had any other friends who didn't live in my house. I barely talked to anybody. She always spoke too fast and turned Jace down flat every time he hit on her and I liked her." He smiled, but Magnus couldn't see his face and there was no real happiness behind it anyway. "Shouldn't have. Anyway, one night a couple of days after we met with the coven and got some more information, she called me – I have no idea how she got my number, but I think Isabelle was involved – and told me she knew where the vampire was. She sounded weird. When I asked where she was, she didn't say anything, and then she gave the phone to someone else."

"I am intrigued."

"Turns out she wasn't as good at hiding as she thought he was, and the vampire had finally hunted her down. He told me where they were and said if I came alone, he wouldn't hurt her anymore. I asked him – I said, "What did you do?" and he just laughed at me and hung up."

"This is a depressing story, isn't it?"

Alec didn't answer. "So on the list of all the stupid things I've ever done, going there by myself was probably the stupid_est_. And it didn't even matter, because by the time I got there, he'd already killed her. Then he promptly tried to kill _me_. I was… kind of against that, so he had some trouble, but he managed to bite me –" He turned his hand over to show Magnus the half-circle of bite scars on the side of his wrist. "I started bleeding a lot, which slowed me down, and eventually he backed me against the wall, got my seraph blade away from me, and stabbed it through my hand into the brick so I couldn't go anywhere.

"I probably would've died right there, but Jaina wasn't _quite_ dead yet. She woke up and started screaming. He got distracted and went to go finish her off before taking me out – which was a really dumb idea, because of the two of us, I could move and he'd left me with a weapon. I couldn't get the blade out of the brick, so I had to break it off while it was still stuck through my hand – stop _cringing_. It didn't work anymore but it was sharp, so when he came back, I just… slashed his throat."

"Let me get this straight," said Magnus, who was terminally incapable of not interrupting when other people told stories. "Until a couple of months ago, you'd never killed any demons, but you killed a murderous vampire when you weren't even fifteen? Color me impressed."

"It was sheer dumb luck. I think I blacked out for a while – after I woke up, my father called to find out what the hell I was doing running around in the middle of the night when that vampire was still out there and I told him what happened. He came to get me, which was probably a good thing because it would've been really hard to explain to anyone else what I was doing in an alley with a dead werewolf and a dead vampire. The end."

"You're a terrible storyteller," Magnus said. He ran the pad of his thumb along the scar on Alec's palm, then laced their fingers together.

"I know." Alec was good at word-for-word regurgitation of things he'd read, but not so much at repeating things that had happened to him or making stuff up, which was probably why he was such a bad liar. A fluffy earflick at his elbow reminded him of Chairman Meow's presence and he reached down to pet the cat's head, lost in thought. "You know what's funny about it?"

"None of the things you think are funny are actually funny."

"Shut up. It's funny because that was probably the only time my father was genuinely proud of me, and once the adrenaline wore off I was so horrified and disturbed by the fact that I'd killed another person that I never wanted to think about it again." Chairman Meow, having tolerated enough affection, wandered to the other end of the bed to attack Magnus's feet for a while. Alec folded his arms under his chin. "It's different, killing people," he murmured. "Demons are just parasites – they come here to destroy and that's all. But that vampire… we talked to his coven and learned all this stuff about him. He had a name and a family and friends. He was a _person_, and I killed him." He ran his fingers through his hair. "Of course, I was still pretty firmly stuck in my 'I don't want to be a Shadowhunter' phase back then, so that probably didn't help. I got over it eventually."

Magnus had miraculously restrained himself from making comments during that little monologue. He now pressed his lips to the back of Alec's neck and said, "If it helps any, I don't think you had much of a choice in the matter. Better to kill than be killed, I suppose."

"That's a very Shadowhunter thing to say."

"I know, I hate myself." Magnus was quiet for a moment as Alec picked balls of lint and purple sparkles off the pillow. "I'm sorry about your friend. She sounded like a lovely person."

Though he didn't know what compelled him, Alec couldn't resist the impulse to say, "She kissed me once."

"It is _amazing_ how quickly one's opinion of a person can change."

Alec laughed despite himself. "It's not like anything came of it. I had no idea how to react and she apologized, said it was fine if I wasn't interested, and never did anything else. I don't know if she ever worked out _exactly_ how not-interested I was."

"I suppose I can forgive her, then," Magnus said, a bit grudgingly, which just made Alec laugh again because wasn't _he_ supposed to be the jealous one in their relationship? He still felt miserably inadequate when he thought about all the people Magnus had had relationships with during his long existence – maybe that was the reason he wasn't too fond of Antoinette. "Hush, you."

"I wanted to like her." Abruptly sobering, Alec abandoned his futile attempt to de-glitter the pillow and dug his face back into his arms. "Do you know how hard I tried to like her? She was friendly and pretty and could be clever when she wasn't running all of her words into one long jumble – I was _supposed_ to like her. I thought if I could just _make_ myself fall for her, then I'd be normal and everything would be fine. Obviously that worked out really well."

There was a sharp tug on the back of his scalp. Alec yelped, lifted his head, and looked back at his boyfriend. Magnus let go of the lock of hair he'd yanked on and said, "I don't know where you're getting this ridiculous notion that you aren't normal."

Rolling his eyes, Alec settled his chin in his hand and dryly said, "Oh, where do I start? I kill demons for a living. I'm dating a warlock with a raging glitter fetish and most of my entire race doesn't approve of that sort of thing. I briefly got caught up in a complicated love octagon where practically everyone was _related_ in some way."

"That sounds like an average afternoon to me," Magnus said, grinning impishly.

Alec winged the pillow over his shoulder and was rewarded with a satisfying _fwump_ as it connected with Magnus's face. "Go to sleep."

"Sleep is dull," Magnus muttered, but he did fall silent for a few minutes, slotting his fingers into the hollows between Alec's ribs. Alec was starting to doze when he said, "What made your vampire go Nutter Butters?"

"_What_?"

"Why was he killing Shadowhunters?"

Alec shrugged. "Appropriately enough," he said, "there was a girl."

* * *

Reviews are appreciated, because I worked my ass off to get this written in under a week and I'd like to know I didn't drive myself into insanity for nothing.


	2. Chapter Two

**Avarice**

**Disclaimer: **_The Mortal Instruments _belongs to Cassandra Clare, not me.

**Warnings: **As a blanket warning for the whole fic, there's one mention of theoretical suicide, and one veiled reference to something that could be either suicide or self-harm.

**Notes: **I regret the inclusion of two action scenes in this fic. Dear Lord, but I cannot write action scenes, so I'm just going to apologize in advance for the end of this chapter.

There's a nod to one of my Snippets in here.

* * *

The next morning brought with it the discovery that Chairman Meow had slipped out of the apartment, brought back a new friend, and then violently eviscerated it all over the living room floor. From the looks of the blood-soaked grey fur and what appeared to be part of a tail, it had once been a very large squirrel. Magnus evaporated the mess with a few nifty little spells, but a curious smell of roadkill had remained regardless of his efforts, so they'd cracked open the windows and retreated into the den for the time being.

Magnus was currently sorting through a big crumpled cardboard box full of books. It had arrived yesterday, courtesy of some English friend of his – apparently they had a tradition of sending one another books they already read/had no use for/didn't like. Alec thought he needed to make a few friends like that. He'd nicked a book off the top while Magnus was cursing over a paper cut and quickly ran away to the armchair to read it. Magnus hadn't yet tried to divest him of his prize, but that only meant he was concocting a cruel revenge scheme.

"Do you want this?" Magnus asked. Alec glanced up to see Magnus waving a thin, brightly-hued book at him. It was titled _Fun with Shapes_.

"Um. I'm not really sure what I'd do with a coloring book."

"Me either." Magnus tossed it into the 'trash' pile, which had thus far remained empty. "I'm not sure if she was making an unwarranted comment regarding my maturity, or if she wants me to brush up on conductors for some reason."

"I have no clue what that means," Alec said, returning his attention to the page he'd been reading. The Latin contained therein was more archaic than he was used to, so it took some deciphering, but he was almost sixty percent sure he knew what the book was about now.

Unfortunately, he had tempted fate. Magnus seemed to take Alec's ignorance as a challenge. "It's fairly simple, actually. Conductors are built out of enchanted objects that can 'bounce' magic back into the center, so instead of spreading, it's instead concentrated in one particular –" He cut himself off. "Forget it, I'll just demonstrate, shall I?"

"Should I be taking cover?" Alec asked. Magnus's demonstrations were notoriously dangerous.

"No, no, you'll be safe there." The warlock wiggled his hands, and, in a shower of sparks, the stacks of books slid neatly onto the couch, leaving the coffee table bare. He then produced a small candle out of nowhere and set it in the middle of the table. "So, if I want to light the candle…" Magnus snapped his fingers. A small flame leapt to life at the end of the wick.

Alec applauded.

"No derision from the unwashed masses. That was an extraordinarily simple spell – there's practically no drain on my magic reserves. But if I want to significantly increase the size of the flame – say, I decide I want to set the entire top of the table on fire – the manipulation would take up more magic. Understand?"

"Yes," said Alec, interested despite himself. Magic was as foreign to him as windsurfing or calculus, but you never knew when irrelevant knowledge could come in handy.

Magnus blew out the candle. "There's a better way to perform bigger feats of magic while depleting less energy." He rolled a few small marbles around in his palm, then closed his hand, and when he reopened it, they were glowing blue. "The thing about magic is that it's kind of like energy – you can direct it anywhere you want, but it'll lose some power _getting_ there, and it tends to… drop bits, for lack of a better term. This is so much easier to explain to people who work with magic. Anyway, if I place these…." He sank each of the marbles into the plush carpet, forming a pentagon around the coffee table. "The more corners a conductor has, the more powerful it is, because there are more points for the magic to bounce off of. The sides do need to be more or less even. Circles are useless for this, the magic will just get lost trying to figure out where it's supposed to be."

"I don't know if I'm following this."

"Don't fret, it's not something you'll ever be tested on." Magnus took a few steps back. "With this conductor, I can set the tabletop on fire using only the same amount of magic I used to light the candle before, all right? I'd ordinarily stand inside the conductor, but it's too small. So, observe." He clicked his fingers.

Maybe it was a warrior's instinct, maybe it was a dubious faith in Magnus's guarantee of personal safety – whatever it was, Alec had the foresight to fling the book up in front of his face right before the coffee table exploded.

Coughing, Magnus waved smoke and dust out of his face as Alec cautiously peered over the top of the book. The room was littered with splinters and there was a blob of melted wax stuck to the television screen. "Did you really blow up a table and endanger my life just so you could prove a point?"

"I assure you, that was not the outcome I intended." Magnus planted his hands on his hips, looking despairingly at the wooden remains. "And I _liked_ that table, too. Should've used a smaller conductor…." Muttering to himself, he began cleaning up yet another room. "I hope you learned something, at least."

"How come I've never seen you do that before?"

"The High Warlock of Brooklyn needs no paltry conductors," Magnus said. He summoned the table from the living room, plopped the books atop it, and swept the carpet clean in a burst of spiraling sparks. "Unless you're trying to do something _massive_, they're generally not useful after you've reached a certain level of skill."

"Oh." Alec's phone vibrated in his pocket. He dug it out and opened the text message only to see one word and quite a lot of punctuation.

**BLAMELESS!~&%*!*#~!**

Either Jace was somehow _still_ drunk, he'd lost his mind, or he was trying to convince Alec that he wasn't a shit-stirrer. Whichever it was, Alec had gotten three messages like this since yesterday. He didn't do Jace the honor of replying – no matter what he said, Jace would just have a smartassed response.

"That is a dreadful face you're making," Magnus said, tossing a moldy book aside.

"My brother's an idiot."

"What did he do now?"

Alec tried in vain to think of an explanation that didn't sound like he'd spawned from a family of lunatics. "Before I came here on Sunday, Jace and Clary were at a nightclub, and when Jace left, he was apparently attacked by some guy with a sword. Whoever it was ran off and nobody else saw him, though, so the accuracy of that story is disputable… what's the matter?"

Magnus was frowning, his brows knit. "A sword?"

"He _says_ it was a sword."

"A sword," Magnus repeated, getting to his feet, brushing bits of table off his pants, and giving Alec an odd look. "Where did you say this was?"

"I'm not entirely sure. Some Downworld club in Sunset Park. Jace described it as 'sketchy'."

"There's only one noticeably sketchy Downworld club in Sunset Park. I'll be right back." Magnus disappeared into the hallway.

"…all right," Alec finally said, settling back down to read his book. He kept half an ear out, though, listening to Magnus murmur quietly in the kitchen, where he was either on the phone or talking to Roger. The goldfish was a recent addition to the household – Magnus had wandered into a street fair a week ago, won some silly carnival game, and received a fish as his reward. They'd both assumed it would expire in a day or two. Surprisingly, Roger sported a strong constitution and was still happily swimming around in the big jar on the kitchen windowsill, heedless of Chairman Meow's many attempts to consume him. Alec still had his doubts that the fish would make it to the end of the month, and not just because of the perpetually-famished cat. Magnus's poor track record with small pets was well-known to him. There'd been a parrot back in October that appeared out of nowhere, inhabited a cage in the corner of the den for several days, and then vanished as mysteriously as it arrived, leaving behind enough shiny green feathers to fill a pillow. Alec hadn't asked what happened to it, if only because that was usually how horror-movie protagonists discovered their significant other was a serial killer.

Magnus came back soon enough, looking preoccupied, and returned to sorting his books. When his cell phone rang again, he snatched it up immediately. "Well?" he said, running his fingers through his hair and knocking a few sparkles free. "Yes, that's what I thought. I know. I know… that I don't know. All right, thank you."

"Can I ask what's going on, or is this none of my business?" Alec asked, turning the page.

Tucking his phone into his pocket (which should've been damn near impossible, given how tight his jeans were), Magnus sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I know a warlock who carried a sword around. Giant, ridiculous thing. Most of us gave up on swords after the nineteenth century, but _nooo_, he has to be a drama queen and saunter about swinging it… stop laughing at me."

Alec muffled his snickering in the sleeve of his sweater and said, "Sorry, sorry… _you_ calling someone else a drama queen is the most hypocritical thing I've ever heard, that's all."

Magnus gave a very theatrical huff that only caused Alec to start laughing again. He waited patiently, tapping his foot, until Alec had calmed himself. "_Anyway_, when you mentioned someone with a sword, I thought of him. His name is Dominick Vermillion, and he left New York about twenty years ago after failing to endear himself to the local Downworld population. Bit of a brainless asshole, really. So I asked someone who lives by the club to scout around a bit, and what do you know… there was a dumpster in the alley, and inside that, a body."

"Oh," Alec said quietly.

"Yeah." Magnus perched on the arm of Alec's chair, leaned against his shoulder. "Her name was Shasta. I didn't know her very well – she mostly sold potions and small spells to ifrits, I think. Low-level witch. Still…." He sighed again, resting his chin on his fist, other hand rising to toy with Alec's hair.

"I know this is changing the subject, sort of," Alec said after a few minutes, "but I'd like to know how you made the leap from 'guy with a sword' to 'dead body in a dumpster in the alley'."

"It was a hunch. I suspect your brother might've interrupted something but didn't realize it. I wouldn't have thought of it at all if I didn't remember that Dominick and Jackson… well, loathed one another. Still, it's just speculation – for all I know, Dom's off in another country and it was somebody else entirely." The tone of his voice implied that he didn't really think that, but assuming anything else without proof would be wrong. "I might ask Marlene if she's seen him recently, just to be sure."

"Who's Marlene?" Alec asked. He and Magnus had been dating for close to three months and he had at least a vague idea of who most of the people he mentioned frequently were, but he'd never heard of Marlene before yesterday.

"A warlock. She's…." Magnus trailed off, fingers stilling in Alec's hair. "Well. She's dying, unfortunately."

Startled, Alec tilted his face up, but Magnus was looking off into the distance and his expression gave nothing away. "I didn't think that was possible."

Magnus laughed hollowly. "Immortal doesn't mean invincible, darling."

"I know that, I just…." _Dying_ seemed like such an odd word to apply to a warlock.

"Marlene was poisoned when she was young and she didn't have the skill to heal herself. She survived, but she's always been ill." Magnus glanced at him and gave a faint smile. "There's no need to look so unhappy. Marlene's almost as old as I am, she's not too upset about dying. I doubt she ever saw her immortality as much of a blessing. Some warlocks don't, and eventually, they just –" He curved his hand back, strands of dark blue and red just visible beneath his skin, and mimed drawing a blade across his wrist.

Alec didn't know how to react to that. What came out of his mouth was, "Forward."

"Excuse me?"

He reached out, bent Magnus's wrist forward. "If you do it the other way, you're forcing all the tendons up against the skin, so you have more to slice through."

Magnus pressed his lips into a bloodless line, staring at Alec's fingers on his hand, and murmured, "Why in the _world_ do you know that?"

"If it'll kill someone, Jace knows how to do it _and_ make it easy."

"Mm." Magnus wound his fingers around Alec's. "As I was saying, Marlene and Dom were friends – as much friends as anyone could've been with him – so if he's come back and contacted anyone, it'd probably be her."

"Oh," Alec said again, letting the subject die. His natural inclination was to _do_ something – if the dead had been Nephilim, there would've been an uproar already, but he couldn't just go throwing himself into Downworld affairs without catching serious trouble for it. He sat in an uncomfortable, unstable position, being both the High Warlock of Brooklyn's boyfriend _and_ a Shadowhunter. He was often privy to information that he could neither repeat nor do anything about. For anyone but Magnus, he thought, it wouldn't be worth it.

"Perhaps now you could return the book you stole."

"I don't think it counts as stealing if I haven't even left the room with it."

"Semantics," Magnus said, and smiled, and stroked Alec's hair again, but there was something dark in his eyes. He didn't even threaten to toss a dead spider at Alec if he didn't give the book back. Alec closed it, feeling strangely exhausted, leaned against Magnus's side, and they sat there quietly for a very long time.

* * *

"Could you get down from there? You're making me nervous."

"No."

"I beg you. I cannot rid myself of the mental image of you falling off, cracking your head open on the sidewalk, and leaking those lovely brains of yours all over the place until they spill into the storm drain. Then you'll be a vegetable and I'll have to sacrifice my livelihood to care for you, all the while mourning the loss of my lover and praying around the clock that some higher power will see fit to miraculously restore you to your former self."

Sometime during this impassioned speech, Alec had stopped walking and stared down at Magnus, who finished his dramatic diatribe with an appropriately anguished expression and some heart-clutching to top it off. "You've really put a lot of thought into this, haven't you?"

"No, I just watch loads of Lifetime movies when you're not home. Now, _please_ get down from there, or I'll have to add a subplot involving my long-lost, devastatingly handsome rogue of an ex who comes back into the picture and tries to tempt me away from your lifeless form."

"Oh, well, in that case… no." Grinning at the filthy look Magnus gave him, Alec started walking again, balancing on the narrow rail of the chain-link fence with ease.

"Philistine."

"I don't even know what that means."

"It means you have no appreciation for art," Magnus grumbled. Unsure how that was relevant, Alec said nothing. "I'll be forced to choose between a gorgeous but brain-dead Shadowhunter and the devastatingly handsome rogue. Do you know where that leaves me?

"I'll be oozing into a storm drain. Do you know where that leaves _me_?" Alec asked, then answered his own question, "In a storm drain, of course."

This sort of hypothetical conversation wasn't unusual for them. The warlock liked to wildly speculate about how he would handle horrible but unlikely tragedies befalling Alec, and Alec liked to mock him for it. Magnus should've written romance novels, Alec decided. He could come up with this junk on the fly. "If I fall and end up a vegetable, I give you permission to get together with your devastatingly handsome ex."

"No, I don't think I will. He's pretty, but boring. I don't want to spend the rest of my life with an accountant."

Alec reached the end of the fencing and leapt off, landing so lightly on the sidewalk it was as if he'd floated down. They were only about four blocks from the apartment, now – the Italian place they often frequented wasn't exactly within 'walking distance', but Alec hated the subway with the fiery passion born of chronic motion-sickness and it wasn't all that cold, so walk they did. Magnus finally caught up, favoring him with a scowl that didn't reach his bright eyes. "I did say I wouldn't fall," Alec told him.

"You did _not_. You merely mocked my concern." Using his superior height to his advantage, Magnus backed Alec against the fence and trapped him there, arms braced against the chain-link. "You impugn my honor, Shadowhunter."

"What kind of a word is 'impugn'?"

"It's a perfectly good word," Magnus retorted. "Stop talking and let me kiss you."

"Okay," Alec said agreeably, grabbing Magnus by the scarf and yanking his face down. Some girl across the street wolf-whistled. Normally, that would've been the point where Alec lost his nerve and ran for it, because he was most emphatically _not_ an exhibitionist, but it had been such a wonderful evening that he just wrapped his arms around Magnus's neck, kissed him back, and hoped a small sinkhole would swallow that girl.

* * *

Thursday morning dawned foggy and damp. Alec, who'd been not entirely asleep again, opened his eyes halfway and tipped his head to the side to look outside as water began striking the window. More rain. It was December 6th and he thought it really ought to be snowing by now. Magnus rumbled something, then flopped an arm across the mattress, narrowly missing Alec, who watched the tan fingers curl and twitch for a few minutes before extricating himself from the blankets. His watch read 7:38, but he wasn't getting any more sleep.

Chairman Meow was sitting expectantly in the kitchen doorway when Alec drifted out of the bathroom and down the hall. He hopped to his paws and began a cacophonous meowing, circling his empty food dish and giving Alec imploring looks. "Okay, okay," Alec yawned, shoving his hair out of his eyes as he poked through the cabinet for the cat food. He was forgotten the moment the dish was full. Too used to the fickle moods of felines to feel slighted, Alec started up the coffee and dropped into a chair at the table beneath the window. Roger gaped soundlessly at him. "Sorry, I don't know what Magnus feeds you. _If _Magnus feeds you." He rested his arms on the table, traced the shifting patterns thrown onto the wood by the light flowing through the water in Roger's jar. They were kind of pretty.

Then Chairman Meow threw up all over the floor, and Alec dropped his forehead onto the table in despair.

He didn't move when the apartment's bell rang. A moment later, a door slammed, and Magnus came stumbling down the hall, bleary-eyed and only wearing his silk pajama pants. Alec heard him smack the wall a few times before locating the button. "I was _sleeping_."

"This is important," said a cool, English-accented voice. "Buzz me up."

"Mmgbhb," Magnus burbled. He wandered into the kitchen then, rubbing his eyes and looking more than half-asleep. "Alec, what are you do – oh, _ew_." Alec turned his head just enough to see that Magnus had stepped in the remains of Chairman Meow's ill-digested breakfast. He wasn't sure who he felt sorrier for – Magnus for getting cat vomit on his bare feet, or himself for having to put up with Alistair this early in the morning. And moments later, the warlock himself swept in, deftly navigating around the mess. "So what's up?" Magnus said, showering the floor in sparks.

"There's been another one."

Magnus crossed the now-clean linoleum, picked up the coffeepot, and took a hearty gulp without even _thinking_ about using a mug. "You know, other people would like some of that," Alec mumbled.

He was ignored. "Who? Where?"

"Ophelia. Right behind Flannery's house."

"Shit." Magnus looked at the coffee like he wished it was something much stronger. "How?"

"Same as the others. Hard blow to the head. Some kind of magic was used on her, but I couldn't tell what, it had decayed too much." Alistair darted a look at Alec, who was much too tired to give a damn and just ignored him. "Magnus, I have a theory."

"I welcome theories," Magnus said, swallowing more coffee, "as I'm drawing a blank." Alistair hesitated and gave Alec another look, this one much more potent than the last, and Magnus scowled. "It's not like he's –"

"I don't want Shadowhunters involved in this," Alistair snapped.

"Okay, okay, I'll go. I know when I'm not wanted." Alec shoved his chair back, stood up and headed for the hall. Before he reached it, though, he turned back around. "But you know what? Maybe you should _consider_ asking for some help. There are three people dead and you don't seem to have a lot of answers."

Alistair's face hardened. He was attractive in a conventional sort of way, but that expression was _not_ pretty on him. "This isn't exactly something that happens –"

Alec knew, somewhere in the rational part of his mind, that he should stop there. Alistair already hated him. But his mouth was well ahead of his brain, as usual, and he said, "What, you're really not used to a warlock wantonly murdering other warlocks?"

"We don't expect _wanton murder_ from our own kind," Alistair said icily. "We expect it from yours."

A ringing silence filled the room. Magnus's eyebrows had vanished into his unstyled hair. Alec's pulse was roaring in his ears, but he knew, with a sick twist of his stomach, that there was nothing he could say to refute that. There were textbooks _filled_ with accounts of the atrocities Shadowhunters had visited on warlocks before the Accords. He glared at Alistair for a moment, turned to leave – then spun back around yet again, grabbed the coffeepot from Magnus, and walked out.

He didn't go far, though. The den and the kitchen shared a wall and when the conversation restarted, Magnus didn't bother to keep his voice down. Alec sat on the couch with Chairman Meow and shamelessly eavesdropped.

"Well?"

"I can't guarantee any of this is accurate," Alistair said – softly, but not softly enough. "I was thinking about the two we found before, and I realized: Jackson was terrible with magic. Shasta was passable. Ophelia was decent, yes?"

"She was," Magnus agreed. "Liked setting things on fire, she did… are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?"

"Maybe. Listen, Magnus –" Alistair's voice lowered, _almost_ inaudible now. "If you're right, and this is Dominick, there is _no_ way he'd be capable of any high-profile murders without working his way up. He would _have_ to absorb their power. It would explain why this is happening so fast. And if it's him…."

"I know," Magnus said tiredly. "I know. Marlene said he moved back a couple of weeks ago. Let's just hope it doesn't come to that. Are you leaving already?"

"I can't stay, I'm expecting someone. Call me if anything happens."

"That goes for you too. I _know_ you know how a phone works. Use it."

Alec waited until the front door closed to make his way back to the kitchen. Magnus was leaning against the counter, knuckles pressed to his lips, five feet from Alec and yet a thousand miles away. He didn't even notice there was anyone else in the room until Alec set the empty coffeepot on the table. "I can't believe you drank all of my coffee," Magnus said, abruptly returning to the here and now.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on, or should I not bother asking?"

"I imagine you _heard_ most of what's going on."

"I did," Alec admitted, "but some of it went over my head."

Breathing a weary sigh, Magnus moved to the table and sat down. "It's not too complicated. Supposing dear Dominick _is_ our culprit – which, unfortunately, is still unproven – he's most likely killing these warlocks so he can take their power. And he's probably not done, because we suspect he's working up to something. It's a simple enough spell, even a weak warlock like him could manage it. He kills someone, absorbs their power, then uses it to overwhelm and kill a stronger warlock. But he has to do it quickly, since the boost generally only lasts about five days before wearing off. If he doesn't kill again, he's back to square one," he rambled, scrubbing his face with his palms. "Did that make any sense? I'm exhausted."

"No, I understand." Magnus had painted a bleak picture for him. Alec watched Roger swim in dizzy circles, turning this new information over and over in his head until something lit up like a flare. "You said he was working up to something… what?"

"Oh, that." Magnus smiled wanly. "Killing me, I assume."

* * *

Alec had only been to the necropolis in Alicante a few times. Most of them were after the battle, but he had a few snatches of memory from when he was very small that involved tombs and the smell of burning wood and an endless landscape of graves. He didn't remember who'd died – he thought it might've been his mother's mother, or had she been the one who passed away when he was four?

It didn't really matter right now, he decided, squinting into the breeze that whipped his hair back. The wind was very cold. He hunched his shoulders, shrank into himself as a couple passed by. The oddest feeling that he should recognize them crept up on him, but he shook it off. He didn't even know what he was doing in the necropolis in the first place… unless someone _else_ had died. Throat tightening, Alec automatically started walking towards his family's tomb, weaving between the graves of Shadowhunters who had died centuries ago. Who was it this time? His father, his mother, Jace, Isabelle…?

He didn't get far before he realized he was being followed. He stopped, letting the quiet footsteps catch up to him. A small, soft hand pushed its way into his. "I don't want to be here," its owner whispered.

"You _aren't_ here," Alec said, staring resolutely into the distance. "You're dead."

"I don't want to be dead."

"I know. I'm sorry." Tearing his attention away from a skeletal tree that had caught his eye, he looked down and swallowed the nausea. "…I think I might be dreaming," he said faintly.

Max shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose and pushed out his lips in a pout. "I don't want to be dead," he repeated. His hand felt boneless in Alec's grasp. Alec was afraid that if he squeezed, it would go flat like a tube of toothpaste and everything inside would ooze out. "I don't want to be dead!" Max shrieked, and suddenly he was clawing at Alec's arm, wild-eyed, skin flaking off his skull and blood seeping between his teeth. Alec backed away, horrified, but Max was faster and he lunged, seizing Alec's wrist in his icy hand. His jaw cracked open –

"_No_ –" Alec jerked upright, breathing the word like there was no air in his lungs. His chest heaved. He was sitting on Magnus's bed, he realized, the warlock himself crouched in front of him with naked concern in his eyes. Magnus slowly let go of Alec's wrist. Alec combed his fingers through his sweat-dampened hair, trying to quell his trembling.

"You've been awfully quiet for a while, so I came to make sure you were still breathing," Magnus said, seating himself on the mattress. "Are you okay?"

Alec nodded and muttered, "Weird dream." Again. Same shit, different day. At least his heart rate was starting to return to normal. He seemed to have woken up Chairman Meow, though, who communicated his displeasure by shoving his head under Alec's hand until Alec relented and pet him.

Magnus didn't press the issue, for which Alec was grateful. "Just checking. If these are my last days on Earth, you'd damn well better be around to enjoy them with me."

"Mm." Alec drew his knees up and rested his chin on them. Sometime after Alistair had left, Alec went back to bed, curled up, and tried very hard to not think about Magnus dying. He'd survived nearly being drowned by his father and a few violent, bloody battles and probably other things he hadn't told Alec about, so one resentful warlock shouldn't be trouble, but Magnus's cavalier attitude towards the whole thing was starting to annoy him. _He_ couldn't think about it for too long without his stomach tying itself into knots. "Shouldn't you be a bit more worried? If this guy wanted to kill _me_, I'd at least be panicking a little."

Magnus scoffed. "No you wouldn't. Three people have tried to kill you since we starting dating and you weren't even _slightly_ bothered. I'm not sure if you're stupidly brave, or bravely stupid."

"They were all trying to get to you, and they sucked at it anyway." The first one followed Alec home to the Institute, which didn't work out well, the second was clueless, and the third actually managed to force his way through Magnus's wards and into the apartment. Alec broke the man's ribs. The attempted assassinations had dropped off after that.

"You don't have to worry about me, you know," Magnus said. He stroked Alec's face, running his fingers from the top of his cheekbone to the point on his jaw where he drew his bowstring to. "I'm resilient. Besides, I refuse to die before my Christmas party – which you will be attending, just so you know."

"Are you really going to tell me that _you_ didn't worry when everyone was trying to kill me?"

Smiling slightly, Magnus dropped his hand atop Alec's and squeezed. Alec involuntarily thought of Max and had to suppress a shiver. "That's a bit different, you see. I'm a _warlock_."

"I don't know who told you that was a good explanation for everything," Alec said irritably, "but they need to be shot."

"No, _listen_, darling. We aren't exactly virtuous, pure creatures – consider it a side effect of being half-demon. We're greedy, we want things we can't have, and on the rare occasion that we actually get them… well, we turn into possessive bastards. And as for you, Alexander?" He cupped Alec's face in his hand again and smiled as sharp and bright as broken glass. "Well, you're _mine_, and I don't like people touching my things."

* * *

"Are you happy?" Magnus asked out of the blue on Saturday.

Alec lifted the arm covering his eyes and squinted at Magnus through the fading sunlight. "What?"

From somewhere far off behind Magnus, a child's high, wild laughter rent the air. A flock of terrified birds took flight in a flurry of squawks. Other than that, Central Park was startlingly quiet, considering it was smack in the middle of Manhattan.

"I asked if you were happy," Magnus said, not taking his eyes off the leaf in his hand. All of the trees were bare by now, but he'd gathered some of the dead leaves and was coaxing them back to life, painting them in brilliant shades of red and weaving them together for some purpose Alec hadn't been able to guess yet.

"Yes," Alec said without thinking about it, draping his arm back over his eyes. He loved big parks like this. They made him think of the sort of place he'd _like_ to live, somewhere with a lot of trees and lakes and fewer Starbucks franchises. Somewhere like the house they'd lived in before his parents were exiled. He couldn't even recall that much of the manor, anymore – the snowman-shaped stain on the living room carpet where he'd spilled grape juice once, the soft lavender walls in the room that should've been Isabelle's, the colors of the cats, although he'd never paid much attention to any of them besides his own (mostly because she didn't let him) – but he thought he would have enjoyed growing up there.

Magnus didn't say anything else. Alec dozed, letting his mind wander. Eventually, though, it looped back around to the question he'd been asked.

Was he happy?

His first instinct, again, was to say yes. He had Magnus. He had Jace and Isabelle and they had people who he supposed were tangentially his friends. He wasn't lying to himself – or everyone else – anymore, and he was much less depressed for it. Hadn't he gotten everything he'd wanted?

No, he thought. No. Not really. He'd never wanted his parents to hate each other. He'd never wanted his father to hate _him_. He'd never wanted his little brother to die. He'd never wanted the nightmares or the scars or the prospect of being stuck killing things for the rest of his life. And maybe he'd had this irrational hope that being with Magnus would just _fix_ everything that was wrong with him, make him learn how to brush off all the little things about himself he couldn't stand. Warlocks weren't miracle cures, it seemed. Pity.

"If I was unhappy," he finally said, "it wouldn't be because of you."

Magnus's smile almost looked genuine. "Good answer." He held up his completed leaf creation, which had turned into a circlet, and plopped it down on Alec's head. "Now you're King of the Park."

"How old are you, eight?"

"When you're my age, you get to be whatever age you want. No, don't take it off," he said when Alec moved to brush the leaf crown away. "Hold still a moment."

"Don't you dare," Alec said, seeing Magnus whip out his cell phone. "If you take a picture of me with this thing on my head –"

"Pff, you're no fun. Fine, but you have to leave it on. It looks good." Magnus stretched out on his stomach next to him, his fingers once again finding their way into Alec's hair, and absently hummed snippets of songs Alec didn't know. Alec just laid there on the grass and wondered how the hell he was still such a disaster.

* * *

The phone in the kitchen was ringing, and nobody was doing anything about it. There was an unspoken rule in Magnus's house – if the landline rings, don't answer, because the only people who called it were either trying to sell something or were looking for services Magnus didn't provide. His number was very similar to that of a local phone sex line. "I used to play along sometimes," Magnus had told Alec once, "and then I'd explode something harmless and scream and make them think I'd died just for kicks, but even that got old after a while." So occasionally the phone rang and went unanswered, because Magnus had taught himself to tune out the sound and Alec was afraid to pick it up. There was only one person whose arousal he cared about and it wasn't some desperate stranger.

Before the ringing went silent this time, though, it was joined by the cheerful chirp of a second phone. Alec fumbled around on the coffee table for his cell without looking away from his book, which, after considerable frustration, he'd realized was about Scandinavian trolls. Not usually something that interested him, but he was bored. Magnus was watching _Project Runway_ reruns. He finally found his phone, precariously balanced atop a half-empty mug of tea, flipped it open, and said, "Yeah?"

"We've got a reservation for Ravener, party of three."

"Speak English, Jace, I'm tired."

"_Raveners_," Jace said, the way someone less cultured would say _duh_.

"Yes, I gathered that much," Alec sighed, closing his book, putting it aside, and swinging his legs off of Magnus's lap. Magnus glanced up as Alec stood and headed for the bedroom. "Where?"

"That's the fun part. They're requesting different tables."

After knowing him for eight years, Alec could usually puzzle out Jace's babblings, no matter how elliptical they were, but he wasn't catching on right now. "That doesn't tell me where."

Jace's sigh was like a burst of static over the line. "They've all gone their separate ways, so Isabelle's going to take the one uptown, Clary and I will handle the one by the bridge, and _lucky you_, the third one's right there in Brooklyn."

"You want us to split up?"

"Jesus, Alec, you are criminally slow on the uptake tonight. _Yes_, I want us to split up."

Alec worried his lower lip with his teeth. "I really don't know if that's a good idea."

"Are you serious?" Jace said incredulously. "You and I were out hunting Raveners when we were what, thirteen? Isabelle did the same. Clary killed one before she even knew what she _was_. This degree of overprotectiveness is extreme even for you."

There was no way to explain the niggling fear that wrenched at the back of Alec's mind. He wasn't sure how well Jace would understand – he had his own nightmares, of course, but Alec's were beginning to get a _little_ overwhelming and he just didn't want anybody to die. He didn't have anyone else to fill in the blanks if he lost Jace or Isabelle.

"All right, all right," Alec said, jamming the phone between his ear and his shoulder and venturing into the closet for his gear, "tell me where I need to be."

Five minutes later, Alec was Marking himself and pointedly ignoring Magnus, who didn't even _try_ to pretend he wasn't blatantly ogling. "Sorry," Alec said, buckling the strap of his quiver, "I've got to go."

"No worries." Magnus slipped past him and plucked an ostentatiously red jacket from the rack. "Duty calls for me, as well. Don't wait up if you get back first."

Alec would probably be awake anyway. "Okay." He picked up his bow and, before Magnus could flutter off for the night, clamped a hand down on the back of Magnus's neck and pulled him in for a kiss. "Don't destroy anything."

Magnus looked offended when Alec let him go. "Look, that thing in Macy's was an _accident_."

"You set a plague of locusts on the customers."

"Now, you can't prove that."

They bickered playfully all the way down the stairs and outside, where they parted, Magnus taking the street perpendicular and Alec made his way towards his mortal enemy – the subway. The ride was short enough for him to tolerate without revisiting his dinner, but nevertheless, he was glad when the train pulled into the station and he could escape into the crisp night air.

That was where he ran into a problem. There was no Ravener.

"What do you mean, there isn't a Ravener?" Jace snapped when Alec called. "Are you sure you're in the right place?"

"_Yes_. I'm not an idiot." Alec stopped outside of a twenty-four-hour convenience store and turned in a circle, half-hoping that his elusive Ravener would just pop out of a manhole or crash through a Starbucks or something. "I've covered a mile and a half, thereabouts, and there is _no Ravener_. Are you sure you _sent_ me to the right place?"

"Of course I am. Look, if you don't find anything, the rest of us will swing up when we're done and try to cover more area, although I don't think it could've gone that far yet…."

"Okay, I'll –" Alec stopped. He'd just heard a very strange _thunk_ that he couldn't quite place – it didn't sound like a Ravener, but he couldn't be sure. "Never mind, I might've found something. I'll call you back."

"Fine," Jace said, and disconnected. Alec jammed his phone into his pocket. The noise had been nearby, originating from somewhere to his left, and he took an arrow from his quiver as he moved towards where he thought the sound was coming from – a narrow alley between two apartment buildings which, he discovered when he peered around the corner, opened to a fenced-in lot. A Ravener would've been hard to miss in a wide, empty space like that, and there wasn't one present.

There was, however, a dark heap on the ground and someone leaning over it, bracing themselves on a sword.

For a moment, Alec hesitated. He couldn't be sure what was going on here. And even if it _was_ what he thought it was, interfering might end up bringing him more trouble. His internal conflict kept him around just long enough to see the hooded figure heft the sword, tip pointed downwards, and lift it over the crumpled body on the ground.

_I don't want Shadowhunters involved in this_.

Well, fuck that, Alec thought. Shadowhunters were supposed to protect _everyone_, not just their own kind. He nocked the arrow, drew the bowstring, and shouted, "_Hey!_"

The man started, spinning around and raising the sword in front of his body. He didn't have time to do anything else – Alec loosed the arrow and it buried itself into the right side of the man's abdomen in the blink of an eye. He had another arrow nocked almost immediately, even as the man staggered – he lifted a hand and Alec instinctively jerked back around the corner – but the white sparks fizzled out and the man fell to his knees, hands going to his wound.

Alec didn't move until the man (warlock, he mentally revised) was down for the count. With an arrow in his kidney like that, he'd be in a _considerable_ amount of pain, as well as in danger of exsanguination, but he'd also be able to heal from the injury if they needed him alive. Alec approached cautiously. If this was Dominick Vermillion, Magnus had been right when he said he wasn't much of a threat. "If you're alive," Alec said, edging past him, "don't move. You've got some questions to answer."

The body on the pavement was disturbingly small, a boy with rumpled blond hair, maybe twelve or thirteen. There was no visible sign that he was a warlock, but not all of them were as obvious as Magnus and Antoinette. Alec knelt next to him and searched for a pulse.

A metallic scraping sound was the only warning he got that maybe, _maybe_, the lack of sleep was starting to effect his judgment. He'd barely turned his head halfway when the flat side of the sword crashed into his skull.

The world shattered. Alec distantly felt his back hit the chain-link fence as the blow threw him off balance, and he tried to reach for another arrow, but his scrambled brain was telling him that the ground was tipped at a seventy-five-degree angle and he couldn't figure out which way was up. He saw three fuzzy warlocks stagger, three sets of fingers pressing around the shaft of the arrow protruding from their skin, three faces snarl down at him.

"_Bastard_." The warlock spat the word as if it was poison. Trying to refocus his vision, Alec told himself to _move_. He was a sitting duck. There was an awful lot of blood dripping down his ear and neck, though, and he couldn't see, and he was dizzier than he'd ever been when he was thirteen and wasted. The warlock was lifting his sword again – stupid, he admonished himself, get up, _get up_ –

He wasn't sure if he actually screamed when the blade pierced through his shoulder, rattled the chain-link on the other side, drove the air from his lungs. It didn't really matter if he had. Eyes squeezed shut, Alec automatically kicked out, but connected only with the air. He flung his head back and sucked in a gasp through his clenched teeth as the sword slid out of his shoulder with a nauseating _squelch_. Everything had narrowed down to that one bright streak of pain.

The warlock was crouching in front of him when Alec forced his watering eyes open, did his best to push the black-out pain away in favor of staying conscious. Fingers brushed the necklace at his throat. "Let go," Alec breathed, twitching away. It was too late, though, the warlock had already freed the chain from beneath Alec's shirt and was looking at it closely.

Robert Lightwood had kept his family ring for a long time, but no matter how much sentimental value it held, the fact remained that it was simply too small for his fingers, so he eventually had a new one made and gave the old ring to his eleven-year-old son. It never fit Alec either – his fingers were too slender. Finding that appropriate, in a twisted sort of way, Alec wore it on a chain around his neck instead.

Perhaps the warlock recognized the pattern of flames around the ring, because he muttered, "Damn," and dropped it like it had burnt his fingers. He rose, gave Alec a disdainful look… and then turned and scurried back down the alleyway to the street, moving surprisingly quickly for someone who was bleeding out.

What the hell, Alec thought dizzily. The warlock had _had_ him. Alec wasn't even entirely sure where his feet were at the moment, much less able to get to them, so he _should_ be dead right now. But then, he probably would be soon if he didn't get some medical attention. He couldn't draw an _iratze_ with his left hand. As much as it hurt his pride, he was going to have to call for help and just try to remain conscious until then. Although he was obviously concussed and bleeding quite a bit, he could still kind of direct his thoughts in a wobbly line, and the warlock didn't appear to have punctured anything vital.

He needed his phone. He was starting to have trouble thinking, unfortunately. His head, throbbing in time with his heartbeat, felt like it was going to float right off his shoulders and take flight. Panting, wondering if the side of his skull had caved in from the impact, he tried to focus his eyes again and spotted the boy lying a few feet away. Was he even alive?

The last coherent thought Alec had was that if he had foolishly tried to get himself killed for somebody _else_ who was already beyond help, he was going to be _really_ pissed off. Then the shadows claimed his vision, a rushing sound howled in his ears, and he blacked out.

* * *

Look at me, ending a chapter on a cliffhanger like a _real_ writer.

Reviews are so very appreciated! :)


	3. Chapter Three

**Avarice**

**Disclaimer: **_The Mortal Instruments _belongs to Cassandra Clare, not me.

**Warnings: **As a blanket warning for the whole fic, there's one mention of theoretical suicide, and one veiled reference to something that could be either suicide or self-harm.

**Notes: **If you're a stickler for medical accuracy, this… may not be the story for you. xD In fact, this is where medical accuracy comes to die.

This fic was originally conceived as a sequel to _Pride Goeth_. Obviously, it isn't anymore, but there's a small reference in here that may amuse you if you've read that. Also references to _Harry Potter_ because why not.

* * *

Magnus's phone was ringing again. Alec groaned, wondering why he didn't just get rid of that thing already, and tried to block out the noise. It continued, insistently, familiarly… wait, that was _his_ phone. He was so exhausted that he almost ignored it anyway, figuring if it was anyone important, they'd leave a voicemail, but finally he opened his eyes on the off-chance that it was urgent.

And then he blinked, puzzled, at the landscape before him. He wasn't in Magnus's apartment, or even in the Institute – he was in some kind of parking lot, sprawled against a fence, light-headed and shivering. Both his head and his shoulder were killing him, too. That was a bit odd. When he tried to remember how he'd gotten here, he found a gaping white space between leaving the apartment and waking up on the pavement. He took a breath, then gagged as the overpowering scent of copper coated his tongue. What in the _world_ had happened here?

The phone, he recalled suddenly as the ringing registered in his groggy brain. Maybe whoever was calling could give him some answers. But when he tried to move his right hand and take his cell from his pocket, nothing happened. Confused, Alec looked down at his arm, and very nearly passed out again.

It wasn't the blood that bothered him, although there was quite a lot of that. He'd had a vampire try to rip out his ulnar artery once and there had been less blood. What made his stomach curl into a ball and roll up his throat was the glint of something whitish and round protruding from the gaping gash in his shoulder. He was fairly sure he was staring at the head of his humerus bone. And his arm wouldn't move – it'd barely twitch, no matter how hard he tried to raise it, and he couldn't even _feel_ his fingers. Panic thrashed in his chest as he realized that most of the nerves connecting his arm to the rest of his body had probably been severed.

His vision was dimming again. Noticing he was hyperventilating, Alec forced himself to look away and focus on something else. Everything seemed very clear and very hazy at the same time. His gaze wandered over a paper shopping bag tumbling around in the breeze, a broken bit of pavement that had erupted upwards to reveal the dirt underneath, a fair-haired kid lying facedown about four feet away –

The memories he'd lost crashed over him like a tidal wave. The Ravener that wasn't, the warlock with the sword, the warlock _stabbing_ him with the sword. That explained quite a bit, he thought groggily, a little calmer now that he had a handle on what had happened. A concussion and massive blood loss from a stab wound – like a night of drinking without the drinking. No wonder he felt like crap.

Attempting to organize the tangled mess of his thoughts into something resembling coherency, Alec raised his left hand, which still seemed to be working, and dug into his pocket. His phone had long since stopped ringing, and there was no sound except that of his own ragged breathing, but he needed help. He knew of no _iratze_ in the world that could heal the damage done to his shoulder. He opened his cell, punched in a number, smearing blood across the keys, and then shakily pressed his phone to his ear.

It rang an agonizing five times before Magnus picked up. "Hang on a moment –" There was a sound in the background like a pig squealing, and Magnus snapped, "If you'd hold him still, I could change him back easier – can you make this quick, Alec?"

Alec felt sorry for the poor soul who'd gotten himself transformed into a pig. Would that be better or worse than being turned into a rat? He'd never thought to ask Simon what being a rat had been like (he imagined it might offend him), but now he was curious.

"Alec?"

Oh, right. "I might…." He licked his dry lips, closed his eyes again before the strange tilting of the buildings in front of him made him sick. "I might need some help."

Magnus said something else, but Alec didn't catch it, and his phone slipped from his nerveless fingers.

He regained consciousness in a most unpleasant manner – something impacted sharply with his face, sending a blaze of pain across his cheek, and he snapped his eyes open in time to see a hand fall away. "Thought you didn't like slapping people," Alec mumbled, touching his stinging skin. There was blood on his cheek and he wondered which of them had put it there.

"Not usually, no, but it made me feel better this time _and_ it woke you up." Magnus looked up from where he was inspecting Alec's shoulder, eyes wide and much too white around the edges, and said, "What _did_ this to you?"

"Who," Alec corrected. "I found your swordsman."

"God." Muttering to himself, Magnus ran a glowing finger across Alec's sleeve, causing the fabric to neatly split. "What happened?"

"Um…." Alec still couldn't think very well, but the screaming pain in his shoulder had softened to a dull wail, which made it easier to focus. "He was going to kill that boy, I think. I shot him, but I got too close and he whacked me in the head with his sword. Then he stabbed me, and then… he ran like a squirrel. Is he dead?"

"Who?" Magnus glanced over in the direction Alec nodded. "No, he's only been knocked out. I already called Antoinette."

Finding this statement nonsensical, Alec frowned and said, "Why?"

"That's Rico, Antoinette's apprentice… right, you haven't met him. Never mind him, he'll be fine." Rubbing the back of his wrist across his eyes, Magnus sighed and tossed a scrap of bloodied fabric away. "Well, if he was trying to skewer you, he missed."

Something in Alec's brain slotted neatly into place at that, although he wouldn't have been able to explain what triggered the realization. "He wasn't," he said. Unexpectedly, he laughed, though the sound was breathy and weak. "He _can't_. Shadowhunters don't much care about a bunch of dead warlocks – we're awful people, aren't we – but if he'd killed me, the entire Conclave would've gone looking for whoever did it. It would be so much harder for him to kill anyone else without being seen, and they might've made the connection between whoever was killing warlocks and my death." Then his thoughts hit a roadblock and stumbled. "Why didn't he kill Rico?"

Magnus shrugged. He was still poking and prodding Alec's shoulder, oblivious to the droplets of blood freckling his hands. "If he knew you were a Shadowhunter, he may have thought you weren't alone. You Nephilim enjoy hunting in packs. He might've decided that if he stuck around to finish the job, he'd be caught."

"I shot him in the kidney," Alec recalled vaguely. "If he didn't do something about that, he probably would bleed to death before I did."

"Or he just panicked and we're both vastly overestimating his intelligence. Did you see what he looked like?"

"Sort of."

"Don't forget, I'll need you to tell me later." Magnus sat back on his heels and went to rub his eyes again, noticed what a mess his hands were, and grimaced. "Both your scapula and your clavicle are broken – sliced clean through – and those are the _least_ of your worries. There is not a whole hell of a lot attaching your arm to your shoulder right now."

Alec's heart stuttered. "Doesn't really hurt, though," he whispered, swallowing the bile that surged into his throat.

"That's because you're in shock, my dear. Listen to me." Magnus caught Alec's chin and turned his head so they were face-to-face. He was pale, but his eyes were steady and shining green in the dim light spilling from a few golden apartment windows. "If I stop the bleeding first and heal the rest later, there won't be enough blood flow to your arm and it'll rot and fall off. I assume you don't want that. I'm going to have to fix your shoulder _now_, okay? I can only numb so much of the pain – do you have anything leather on you?"

"Aside from just about everything I'm wearing…." Alec held up his left arm. Magnus quickly began unlacing the bracer on his forearm, fingers slippery with blood. He spread it out flat and handed it back to Alec.

"Don't bite off anything I'm fond of," he said, hands beginning to emit an eerie blue glow. "I'm sorry, darling, this is going to hurt."

Alec lifted his unharmed shoulder in a half-shrug, said, "Everything hurts," slipped the bracer between his teeth, and closed his eyes.

* * *

"Is he awake?"

"No."

_Yes, I am_, Alec wanted to say, but he couldn't separate his lips.

Despite his unwise foray into the realm of alcoholism at age thirteen, Alec had never done any kind of drug, but he was pretty sure this was what a trip was like. He kept being flung in and out of consciousness. The world had taken on a syrupy, too-colorful quality that kept him from opening his eyes for more than a moment, he felt like he was floating, and his brains were sloshing around in his skull like liquid. Although he couldn't keep track of time, he was dimly aware of the progression of the sunrise. He was longing for some legitimate sleep by now, wishing for nothing more than to close his eyes without seeing monsters and murder on the back of his eyelids.

He got his wish, eventually. For about thirty seconds. Then the pain made its glorious return.

At first, Alec thought someone was trying to hack off his arm all over again – his breath gushed between his teeth as the flames leaping just beneath his skin crawled down his arm and up around his neck and squeezed, choking him. He arched his back, dug his blunt nails into his shoulder – if he could just get the fire out, it would stop hurting –

Two enormous hands were on him a second later, one pressing his chest, forcing him down against the mattress. The other yanked his wrist away from his spasming shoulder. "_Dammit_ – Maryse, you're going to have to dose him again."

The words cut jagged little slices in the haze of pain, allowing Alec to momentarily drag himself back to reality. He swatted weakly at the hand on his chest, unclenched his jaw, and rasped, "Not you."

"What –"

Alec shoved at the hand again, succeeding in getting it removed before his energy ran out entirely. "Not you," he repeated. "Every time you talk to me I have to get drunk so I can forget how much you make me hate myself. _Go away._"

Whatever his father's reaction to that was, Alec had no idea, because he blacked out again before he had to find out.

When he next awoke, the Institute's infirmary was dim and quiet. His shoulder still hurt, severely enough that he thought moving might be a poor idea, but Alec opened his eyes nevertheless. He was the only one in the room. Everything looked normal again, at least, aside from the strange black streaks across his field of vision – then he realized that his hair was in his face and all was well.

He thought about just going back to sleep for a while. He was _immeasurably_ tired. After a while, though, Alec decided that maybe he ought to try sitting up, which turned out to be a bit of a journey as he'd been curled up on his side. His right arm was in a sling and mostly immobile, so he had to navigate himself into an upright position using only his left arm and his legs. When he finally managed it, he wanted to lay down and never get back up.

Rubbing a hand over his face, which had been cleaned of blood, he kicked the blankets away and folded his legs beneath him. He'd been avoiding thinking too much about his arm so far, but…. Slowly, almost afraid of what he'd find, Alec touched his chest and followed the jut of his collarbone until his fingertips met a tender ridge of scar tissue. Even that slight pressure sent a wave of needles down his arm. Disregarding the pain, he experimentally wriggled the fingers on his right hand.

Alec leaned over until his forehead met the mattress and sighed, unspeakably relieved. He was an archer, and he needed both arms to draw a bow, so having them both still _attached_ was sort of a necessity.

"Why do I keep walking into rooms and finding you doing weird things? First it was getting hammered in the kitchen, now you're imitating a hedgehog or something."

"A hedgehog?" Alec said, sitting upright again and looking at his sister.

"Yes, a hedgehog." Isabelle planted a hand on her hip, glanced over her shoulder, and said, "Good thing you're awake, I didn't really know what to do with her… go on in, then."

Alec had half an instant to wonder who 'her' was before he found himself being body-tackled by what seemed to be quite a lot of curly black hair.

"_Ow ow ow_," he gasped, gritting his teeth as his shoulder was compressed awkwardly, "don't hug me –"

"Sorry, sorry!" Antoinette backed off quickly, wringing her hands. Her eyes were very bloodshot and she looked frazzled, like a live wire. She even kept sending off little flurries of sparks from her fingers. "I didn't mean to squash you."

"It's fine," Alec breathed. Massaging his shoulder didn't help, so he gave up on that and just tried not to twitch too much until the pain receded. "What are you doing here?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, I just thought I'd pop in and see if you and your sexy boyfriend were up for a hot threesome – I came here to _thank_ you, genius."

Now _that _was more like the Antoinette he knew… especially the part where he had no clue what she was talking about. "For what?"

"For keeping Rico from getting killed! God, what does Magnus _see_ in you?" She gave him a look, then sighed, shook her head. "But really, thank you. Good apprentices are hard to come by."

"You're welcome…?" Alec said awkwardly, trying to ignore Isabelle, who appeared to be holding back laughter at his impressive display of social ineptness. "So I guess he's okay."

"He's fine. Doesn't remember a thing, though… not even if it was that asshole Dominick who tried to kill him. Yeah, I've been brought up to speed," Antoinette growled. Her face darkened and she cracked her knuckles threateningly, which might have been frightening if she wasn't about four feet tall. "I shouldn't be surprised Rico was a target, he's a hell of a better warlock than I'll ever be. But if that son of a bitch comes _near_ him again, I'm going to rip out his throat with my teeth. Rico belongs to _me_."

Magnus had obviously been on to something when he'd said warlocks were dangerously possessive. Alec leaned away from her slightly. She noticed this and laughed, brightening as quickly and completely as Magnus did when presented with something sparkly. "I'd better go – I have to walk Rico, I'm not letting him outside without a leash anymore. I just wanted to drop by. See you!" she waved and flitted out of the infirmary as quickly as she had come.

Isabelle shook her head as the doors slammed. "How do you attract all the weirdos?"

"I don't _know_," Alec said hopelessly. "She's one of Magnus's friends. She likes making my life difficult."

"I see." Throwing herself dramatically into a chair next to the bed, Isabelle propped her boots up on the mattress and yawned. "She was here for almost an hour waiting for you to wake up. I think all of Dad's dreams came true for a moment when she showed up and asked for you. And speaking of… what did you _do_ to him?"

"What?" Alec said blankly. "I didn't even know he'd been here."

She raised an eyebrow. "No? I guess not… we kind of needed to stay around you for a while, because you were about a third conscious and you kept trying to claw your arm off – which was _really_ disturbing, by the way. They had to drug you a couple times. At one point I walked by the infirmary and Dad came out, and he looked like you'd sucker-punched him or something."

"Oh. I don't know, I don't remember anything that happened before I woke up just now."

To his surprise, Isabelle threw her head back and laughed. "Do I have a story for you, then! I got back to the Institute, and Jace was already there – Clary went to Luke's house, I think – he was waiting for you to call, but when he did, you didn't pick up. We were starting to get worried and _just_ as he had his finger on the button to call again, you and Magnus showed up. You were passed out and you both were _completely_ covered in blood. Magnus kind of shoved you at me – you're heavy, you know that? – and then he just –" She broke off laughing again. "He literally collapsed _onto_ Jace. The look on Jace's face was the most hilarious thing I've ever seen – I'm kicking myself for not getting a picture, sending it to everyone we've ever met, and setting it as my phone's background. I wish you could've seen it." Smiling, she closed her eyes as if to savor the mental image for a moment. "It was great."

"He'll be finding glitter on himself for weeks," Alec said. He spoke from experience. "Did Magnus go home?"

"Nah," Isabelle said. "He came around just long enough to tell us what happened, then spent the next six hours out cold. I made him go take a shower when he woke up. He was grody. Last I checked, he was asleep on your bed. Want me to go get him?"

"No, leave him alone." Alec tipped over and collapsed against the pillows. "I'm just going back to sleep anyway." He spent a few uncomfortable moments trying to pull the crumpled blanket back over himself with one hand until Isabelle took pity on him, smoothing out the folds while unkindly comparing him to an overturned turtle. Dimly wondering what a turtle/hedgehog hybrid would look like, Alec hid his face in the pillow and dropped off almost instantly.

When Alec woke again, Magnus was sitting cross-legged in Isabelle's vacated chair. He silently rolled a shiny silver coin between his fingers, head resting on his hand, looking distant. "Good morning. Almost afternoon, to be precise."

"Hey." Alec swept his hair out of his eyes and sat up, bracing himself on his good arm. "Can I take this ridiculous thing off yet?" he asked, tilting his head towards the sling.

"No."

Alec was about to ask why not when something else caught his attention. "Are you wearing my clothes?"

Magnus made a sound Alec interpreted as agreement. "I'm afraid mine were covered in blood," he said.

"Couldn't you just…" Alec clicked his fingers, "fix that?"

Snorting, Magnus straightened up and pinned Alec with a look that communicated more irritation than his flat tone held. "No, I couldn't. I had to turn a pig back into a man, which was bad enough. Then you did something abysmally stupid, so I needed to create a Portal to my apartment, find something of yours so I could Trace your location, create _another_ Portal to the alley you were bleeding to death in, and then reconnect just about every vein, tendon, muscle, and bone in your shoulder. I used up so much of my own energy I had to siphon most of yours, and I am _completely_ out of magic. I couldn't fix a sandwich right now, Alexander."

"Oh," Alec said, understanding. "You're mad at me." He looked at Magnus more closely. Magnus was taller than he was, and lacked most of the muscle, but Alec's jeans still fit him well enough and his favorite sweater hung off the warlock's slender frame invitingly. "They look good on you."

"Flattery will get you nowhere." Magnus's lips twitched, though, and then he moved from the chair to the bed and folded Alec into his arms, avoiding his shoulder. "Never do _anything_ like that again," he mumbled into Alec's hair. "_Never_. I was afraid you'd bleed out before I could finish healing you. You aren't allowed to die before I do."

"I think that's going to be unavoidable," Alec said quietly. He settled his forehead into the curve of Magnus's neck, exhaled, shut his eyes. "I love you."

"I love you too, darling." They sat like that for a few minutes, breathing each other in, before Magnus let go and started fiddling with the strap of the sling. "Let's get this off, then, I just didn't want you flinging your arm around or anything yet – all right, straighten out your arm…."

Actually moving his arm came with a wonderful feeling not unlike having his shoulder repeatedly dislocate. Magnus seemed pleased, but Alec was sweating by the time the warlock determined that everything was attached properly. "You can move your fingers, right? Nothing's numb? Good, putting limbs back on is sort of a hit-and-miss process."

"Is it supposed to hurt that much?" Alec panted, rubbing his aching collarbone.

Taking Alec's right hand and stroking his palm, Magnus said, "That should go away in a few days. There's something else you need to know, though – I basically sewed everything in your shoulder back together, muscles included. What's the draw weight on your bow?"

"Ninety-five pounds." Magnus raised an eyebrow and Alec explained, "There are demons with skin thicker than I am, I need to be able to pierce it."

"No, I get it," Magnus said, casting Alec's arms an appreciative glance. "But if you try to draw that right now, you're going to _tear_ everything I just fixed. The connections are too delicate. You'll have to build back up to it. I wouldn't even pick up anything heavy for a week or so."

Great. Nothing like being useless. And yet… "My arm's still on," Alec said, "I'll manage."

"Don't worry, I'm _sure_ I can find other ways to occupy you if you get bored," Magnus said, smiling in a way that was not at all pure. "There's nothing I can do about the scarring, though."

"I don't care. I have a lot of scars."

Magnus turned Alec's hand over, rubbed his thumb along the inside of Alec's wrist. "I've noticed."

Alec quickly drew his hand back into his lap and folded his fingers together. "Anyway," he said uncomfortably, searching for a different topic of conversation. "Oh, right, you wanted me to tell you what that warlock looked like, didn't you?"

"Yes." Magnus paused for a moment. "Can I wear a deerstalker for this, or will you refuse to be seen with me if I do?"

"I don't know what that is."

"It's the sort of hat Sherlock Holmes wore."

"Do what you want. I don't care what you put on just as long as you _never_ wear that thing you wore on Thanksgiving again."

Grinning, Magnus said, "You mean the –"

"We are _not_ going to speak of it." Shuddering at the memory, Alec ruffled his fingers through his hair and grimaced – while his face might've been blood-free, his hair was still matted and clumpy in spots. He wanted a shower. "I didn't really see him all that well, he'd already concussed me by the time I got a look at his face."

"He cracked your skull," Magnus corrected.

"Whatever. He was wearing a hood, too. But he had light hair and really big, dark eyes, and a horrible goatee."

"Horrible goatee, huh?" Magnus tapped his nails against his teeth, a habit of his that never failed to grate on Alec's nerves. "Yes, that sounds like Dominick to me. Especially the horrible goatee. He never failed to make poor facial hair choices."

"I don't know what a _good_ facial hair choice would be," Alec muttered. He unfolded his legs and carefully stood up, waited for a moment until his head stopped swimming, and rubbed the back of his aching neck. "I need to take a shower. And maybe collapse for a day or two."

"You're going to be exhausted for quite a while," Magnus cautioned, standing and keeping pace with Alec as the latter headed for the doors. "I did tell you I had to borrow almost all of your energy so I could finish healing your shoulder. Sleeping for a few days might do you some good, though, you look dead on your feet." He followed Alec all the way down the deserted corridor before adding, "I'll send your clothes back once I get home, okay?"

"No, just hang onto them, I don't have much stuff there anyway. Are you leaving?"

"If you want me to stay…."

Alec waved a hand and opened the door to his bedroom. "I'm going to shower and sleep and I don't need your particular brand of _help_ with either of those things."

"I would never!" Magnus said, pressing the back of his hand to his forehead like he was about to swoon. Alec merely raised his eyebrows. "You're impugning my honor again."

"Go away."

"Ouch. That hurts me, Alexander. Right here, in my clavicle." Magnus tapped the offended area. "Fine, I shall away to my home, but first, come here." He snagged Alec by the uninjured arm, pulled him in for another hug, and touched his lips to Alec's forehead. "Call me later and let me know how you're feeling, would you? If I don't hear from you, I'll storm the Institute, and I'll bring Antoinette."

"_Anything_ but that."

"No, you misunderstand, she'll be the battering ram."

"She's not big enough."

Magnus laughed, ran his fingers over Alec's cheek, and left the room. Alec closed the door behind him and turned around. He very much needed to bathe.

As he flopped onto the bed, putting his pillow back where it was supposed to be (by his standards, at least – he slept with his head at the foot of the bed), he decided a shower would come later. No man could resist the siren call of a soft mattress.

* * *

Alec's shoulder had stiffened up so thoroughly by the time he got out of bed that even twenty-five minutes in the shower didn't do much to loosen his muscles. It was inconvenient, but on the other hand, anything that kept him from moving his arm too much was probably a good thing. Getting dressed was not fun, though. Pulling a shirt over his head proved nearly impossible.

Magnus was right, he decided, catching sight of his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Alec did look dead on his feet. He was pale and his hair was a catastrophe and there were purple bruises under his eyes. He put on his jeans and almost left the room before he started contemplating his appearance too much, but then he paused and tugged the neck of his shirt to the side to better see the raw, red scar that curved from the front of his shoulder to the back. It wasn't pretty. If Alec hadn't been so relieved to still have a working arm, it might've troubled him.

His stomach growled a strongly-worded reminder that it was three-thirty and he hadn't eaten anything since dinner last night. Padding barefoot down the hallway, he wrung out his wet hair and tried to wake himself up – Magnus hadn't been joking when he said Alec would be exhausted, either – but he only got about halfway to the kitchen when he passed the library and his mother said, "Alexander."

Not voicing any of the impolite words that came to mind, Alec backed up about three steps and peered into the room. "What?"

His mother beckoned him over. Alec reluctantly proceeded in, rested his arms on the back of the chair in front of the desk, and winced as the movement stretched his muscles painfully. "How's your shoulder?" she asked, glancing at a sheet of paper scribbled with numbers.

"It hurts like hell," he said bluntly. "But my arm's not falling off and that's all I care about." He followed the pattern on the upholstery with one finger. "It'll be fine once it heals completely."

"Good." She signed the bottom of the page and set it aside in favor of looking up at him. "Then this would be an excellent time to explain what in the _world_ you were thinking."

Alec had known she was going to ask him that, and he'd come into this with a reasonable explanation prepared – but something in her tone scraped away his resolve to be levelheaded and he scowled darkly at the top of the chair. "I _know_ it was 'abysmally stupid', okay? I didn't exactly go down there expecting to shoot anyone, but he'd already killed three other warlocks and the one he was _about_ to kill was just a little boy."

Maryse's fingers tightened around the pen until her knuckles were bone-white. Alec immediately felt guilty for emphasizing that particular detail. "Fine," she said. "I'm less concerned with why you did it than I am with why I didn't know this was going on."

"I don't think _I'm_ supposed to know it's going on." Alec set his chin down on his arms and resumed tracing the curlicues on the fabric. "It's… complicated. I guess you could say warlocks are kind of a closed community. They don't _want_ us to know what happens unless it explicitly concerns us. The only reason I know some of this stuff is because of Magnus, and even then, I can't _do_ anything about it."

"So you're caught in the middle," she murmured.

"It's not that bad. Usually people aren't being murdered."

Sighing into her hand, his mother put her pen down and gave him a pointed look he carefully avoided meeting. "I appreciate that it's a delicate situation," she said, "but if this keeps going on – we cannot _let_ it keep going on. We have a duty to the entire city, no matter what species the population is. Do you understand?"

Alec bit his lip. "I understand." It would feel like betrayal to allow his mother and the rest of the Conclave to handle a situation _he_ shouldn't have even gotten involved in, but she had a point. Being a Shadowhunter with a personal connection to a warlock was a pain in the ass sometimes.

"All right." She took up her pen again. Alec recognized the dismissal for what it was and turned around to leave. "Do you realize you don't look at people when you talk to them?"

That wasn't entirely true, he thought. He looked at Magnus and his siblings and Clary all the time. It was mostly just her and his father who tended to unnerve him too much. "I know," he mumbled, and then took off before she could say anything else.

Alec found himself in the kitchen a minute later and poked through the refrigerator in search of a meal. He found something mushroomy – he couldn't identify it, but it lacked the vile smell that usually accompanied Isabelle's concoctions, so assumed it was his mother's and heated it up.

He still felt guilty. His mother sometimes behaved like Max had died yesterday, and anything that reminded her of him, even in oblique ways, obviously hurt her. His father wasn't any better, but Alec tried not to have too many conversations with him these days. He could empathize with them all too well. He would get up in the morning and expect to find him in the kitchen, eating cereal and reading comic books, or think Max had borrowed one of his books when he'd really just left it in another room, and he hadn't stopped having nightmares about his death yet. He just thought maybe it would be a little easier to deal with if they could all stop pretending his little brother had never existed. Nobody had been in his room in close to three months. The door always stayed firmly closed, hiding a shrine to a boy who'd died well before his time.

* * *

"Oh, come on," Alec muttered, yanking his key from the lock and reinserting it. "Just open already…"

It was early afternoon, the day after he'd awoken in the infirmary, and he was doing his level best to not just whip out a weapon and start carving Magnus's door up. The lock had always been temperamental, but he'd been shivering in the stairwell for five minutes now with no success. He wasn't entirely sure he should be running around yet – he'd fallen asleep while trying to puzzle out the mushroom-broccoli-sauce creation and woke up at ten p.m., somehow still completely drained. Then he'd gone to bed and woke again three hours later, feeling like his arm was being ripped off (which was incidentally what he'd been dreaming about – such a wonderful addition to his already-extensive repertoire of nightmares), and decided that was quite enough of that. He stayed awake for the rest of the night. So now he was so tired he could hardly see straight and getting extremely frustrated with an inanimate object that wasn't responding to his abuse, all because he wanted his boyfriend to make him feel better.

"Come _on_ –" He gave the key one last sharp twist. There was a worrying _crunch_, and when he removed his key, most of the insides of the lock came with it. "Are you fucking serious?"

The lock said nothing. Alec was pretty sure it was laughing at him. He tried the knob one last time, huffed, took out his phone, and dropped down to sit on the landing. "Hey," he said when Magnus's voicemail picked up. "Your door is broken and it's cold. Let me know if you'll be back soon or if I should go home. Love you, bye."

He sat outside the apartment for about ten minutes before the door to the stairwell slammed. Alec opened his eyes and almost called out, but the words died in his throat when he saw a mop of brown hair and a black wool coat approaching.

"What are you doing?" Alistair asked, coming to a stop on the landing. Before Alec could say anything, he spotted the sparkling metallic constellation on the mat and said, "Ah."

"The lock's broken," Alec said unnecessarily.

"I see that." Alistair cast a look at the door, then sighed and seated himself on the top step. "I could open the door anyway, but I'd rather not be fried by Magnus's wards, so if you don't mind, I'll just wait for him to return."

Alec, who had seen what the effect the wards had on people Magnus didn't want in his home, merely shrugged and said nothing to break the uncomfortable silence. He dug his thumb into the hollow beneath his collarbone. His shoulder was _burning_.

Abruptly, Alistair shifted and said, "It occurred to me recently that you're dating my best friend."

"Um," Alec said.

"And I have never told you that I will turn you inside out if you do anything to hurt him."

Alec caught on. He was familiar with this sort of thing, though not from this particular angle – both of his siblings had threatened Magnus with everything under the sun if he hurt Alec in any way. Magnus hadn't seemed perturbed until Alec's mother put the fear of god into him. He'd been ever so slightly jumpy around her ever since.

Rather than make any promises (because he tended to screw things up entirely by accident), Alec just propped his chin on his hand and said, "Okay."

Alistair nodded. Alec watched his hair brush the collar of his coat. Another minute passed before the warlock spoke again. "I'm not fond of Shadowhunters. It's a bit of an old-fashioned attitude – Magnus tells me I hold grudges – but it's rather deep-seated. Still, I shouldn't take it out on you, and I apologize for that." All of that had been said in a rush, but the next words were careful and measured. "I could like you. I just don't like what you _do_."

"Well," Alec mumbled into his palm, "that makes two of us, then."

The door downstairs banged open again, and a moment later, Magnus came bounding up the stairs. He screeched to a halt when he saw the two of them sitting there, his eyebrows shooting up. "Are you having a secret conference without me?"

"No. Did you get my voicemail?" Alec asked, unfolding himself and standing up with a wince.

Magnus frowned and took his cell from his coat. "I don't think so… oh, my phone's dead." He revitalized it in a burst of sparks.

"Your lock appears to have fallen apart," Alistair said.

"Again?" Magnus scowled at the tiny golden splinters on the ground and pointed one long finger at the lock. "Open."

The lock clicked. He turned the knob and the door swung inwards without any resistance. "After you," Magnus said brightly, moving back to allow them both inside. Alec didn't miss the way his smile stopped short just before reaching his eyes. They all got about five steps into the apartment before Magnus said, "The warlock's body was in Bensonhurst this time –"

"I would really love to have a conversation that doesn't start with 'the warlock's body'," Alistair griped, drifting into the kitchen.

"I would really love for my life to stop being an episode of CSI," Magnus retorted. He left his jacket on the hook and followed Alistair, and, for lack of anything else to do, Alec trailed along behind him. "I don't even _like_ CSI."

"I don't know what that is," Alec said.

"Nor do I," Alistair added.

Magnus flung his hands up. "It stands for 'Crime Scene Investigation', for starters, and it's – _really_, Alistair? I know you have a television, don't you ever watch it?" Alistair looked somewhat uncomfortable, and Magnus's face split into a grin. "Don't tell me – it blew up."

"Hush," Alistair muttered, pushing his knuckles against his lips.

"You poor thing. Alistair is allergic to electronics," Magnus informed Alec, "or maybe it's the other way around. But moving swiftly along… whatever spell was used on her had decayed, again, but I think he may be taking their blood."

"Wait, wait," Alec said, holding up a hand. "Is someone _else_ dead?"

"Unfortunately," Magnus said grimly. All trace of amusement – feigned or otherwise – was gone from his face. "Her name was – Raven, wasn't it, Alistair? I didn't know her."

"But this guy _just_ tried to kill Rico the other day."

"And that's exactly it. He tried to kill Rico, but because of _you_ –" Magnus produced a pencil from nowhere and jabbed it at Alec, "he failed, which meant he either had to find a new victim immediately or risk his boost wearing off. I told you about that, didn't I?"

"Yeah." Alec sank into one of the kitchen chairs. He'd forgotten for a moment how terribly tired he was, and he felt a bit sick now, as well. "You did. Why would he be taking their blood?"

Surprisingly, it was Alistair who explained. "The blood of a recently-dead person is _incredibly_ magically powerful. It's just rather difficult to acquire. And if he is using it, he'd have to do so immediately – after about five minutes, it transitions from 'blood of a recently-dead person' to just 'blood of a dead person' and loses most of its magical properties."

"Which means if he's enchanting it, for whatever purpose, he probably has to do it before he even leaves the body," Magnus cut in. "And on that note, he's getting sloppy. She wasn't even hidden well."

Alistair heaved a sigh and massaged his temples. "Look, Magnus," he said, fixing his friend with a solemn glare, "Raven was a good witch. Presuming he drained her power, he doesn't have far to go before collecting enough to cause you trouble."

A chill ran down Alec's spine, and when Magnus merely gave a dismissive wave, he snapped, "Could you take this seriously? I don't want you to _die_ because you're being overconfident."

"I'm –"

"You ought to take _some_ precautions," Alistair said before Magnus had the chance to protest. "At least pay attention to your surroundings when you're wandering around alone. Or, better yet, don't wander around alone."

"Constant vigilance," Alec muttered to himself, resisting the desire to laugh.

"This," Magnus said, gesturing wildly at them, "_this_ is what I knew would happen if I left you two alone. I _knew_ you'd eventually realize that you're actually the same person."

"We are _not_," Alistair said.

"Well, you certainly both have a bad habit of assuming I'm incapable of looking after myself." Leaning against the counter, Magnus waved the pencil he was still holding, looking aggravated. "For your information, I do not walk around with my eyes closed, bouncing off the walls, _Alexander_. And as far as 'not taking this seriously' goes, I most certainly am. I just choose to retain my natural bubbly and delightful personality while I do so."

Alistair gave him a blank look. "'Delightful' may be pushing it."

"No unsolicited comments from the peanut gallery." There was a small disturbance in the form of Roger attempting to breach the surface of his jar, splashing awkwardly for a moment, and then sinking down again with a stunned expression. Magnus seemed to take this as an insult. "That goes for you too, fish. Cool it or you're dinner."

Someone's phone vibrated loudly. Alistair plucked his cell from his pocket, glanced at it, and said, "I have to go. Be _careful_, Magnus."

Magnus merely clapped his hands, chirping, "You're using a phone! I'm so proud of you. Do try not to detonate it."

"I have no idea how he's put up with you for a few centuries," Alec said once Alistair had left and Magnus had busied himself with prowling through the fridge.

"He loves me and he knows it."

"Mm." Alec folded his arms atop the table and rested his head on them, fighting the urge to just close his eyes and pass out right there. "Magnus… you know my mother knows what's going on, right?"

Straightening up with a carton of orange juice in hand, Magnus slammed the fridge door, summoned a glass, and poured himself a drink. "Given that she was present during my rambling, semi-conscious explanation of why you were passed out and soaked in blood, I imagine she does."

"She made it very clear yesterday that if more people die, the Conclave is going to get involved, with or without permission."

"Yes, I suspected as much." The glass of juice landed on the table in front of Alec. He blinked into its bright orange depths uncomprehendingly. "Drink that. You're kind of _grey_. And to be honest, if we can't find Dominick soon – lack of proof aside, I'm fairly certain he's our illustrious murderer – I'll welcome their involvement."

Alec picked up the glass and drained it, the juice sour on his tongue. "I don't think Alistair will like that."

"Whether he likes it or not doesn't matter," Magnus said. He sat down across from Alec. "Don't take his ire personally. It's not really _you_ he hates. While Antoinette wormed her way into service of the Clave and managed to earn their respect, Alistair… essentially had the opposite experience, and he's never quite gotten over it."

Nodding, Alec said, "I gathered that," and rubbed his eyes. "Changing the subject – why _can't_ you find Dominick? Is it really that hard to track him?"

"If there's one thing Dom's good at," Magnus said, "it's hiding. And with the amount of power he's accumulated, he could make himself invisible to anyone who's trying to find him. Even if I had something of his that I could use to Trace him, I wouldn't get results." He stretched his arm across the table and settled his hand over one of Alec's. "Listen, we're doing everything we can, okay? We're certain enough that Dominick has something to do with it, so we've warned every warlock we know – and between Alistair, Antoinette, and I, we know just about every warlock in the city – what to look out for. If they don't have a chance of defending themselves, they can just stay home – he's not been attacking people in their houses."

"Why?"

"Almost everyone has wards on their homes to keep unwanted visitors away. It's damn near impossible to break into a warlock's house, no matter _how_ skilled you are."

"Antoinette breaks in here all the time," Alec pointed out.

Magnus laughed. "Because I _let_ her. If I didn't want her here, she would've been Kentucky Fried decades ago." Sobering, he stroked his thumb across Alec's knuckles, turned his gaze to the window. "Besides, with any luck, this may end here. If he can't find another victim within five days, his power diminishes, and I have so many trackers searching for him that he'll light up like a beacon."

"And if that doesn't happen?"

"Then we swallow our pride and solicit the Conclave's help."

"Well," Alec said, "at least you have a plan."

Smiling slightly, Magnus reached up and tapped the bottom of Alec's chin. "So don't look so dour. Go get some sleep."

"Only if you come with me," Alec said, toeing off his boots and standing up. He removed his jacket with some difficulty, left it on the back of the chair, and gave Magnus an expectant look.

"All right, I could use a nap anyway." Magnus's chair screeched across the linoleum. "And this time, let's try to do some actual sleeping, shall we?"

* * *

Magnus let go of Alec's arm. "I think that's enough," he said, brushing Alec's hair out of his eyes, "you're getting a bit colorless."

Alec just groaned faintly and leaned forward until his head was resting against Magnus's chest. His shoulder was _throbbing_, sending waves of pain crawling along his bicep and up the side of his neck. Magnus had been trying to manipulate his arm into positions that didn't seem entirely natural right now, and he didn't _appear_ to have run into any problems, but it had hurt like hell.

"I don't think you have a full range of motion," Magnus said, tugging down the sleeve of the t-shirt Alec slept in and simultaneously dashing Alec's hopes.

"Oh, that's _great_. Did you miss a tendon or something?"

"Don't get snippy with me, I did the best I could."

Magnus sounded annoyed. Alec sighed and mumbled, "I'm sorry, I'm not mad at you, it's just –" He broke off. There were really no words to explain how he felt right now.

He'd picked up his bow yesterday afternoon, sat on his bed with it, and experimentally tried to draw the string just an inch or so. He had been rewarded with the excruciating feeling of his arm attempting to tear away from his shoulder. That hadn't been so bad – he'd already known it would take a while until his muscles healed enough to draw his bow – but it was kind of the cherry on top of the crippling injury sundae. In the three days since he'd been wounded, Alec had found that his right arm didn't always do what he needed it to do. He could lift it to shoulder-height and no higher, and stretching it out to the front or back caused his muscles to spasm so violently he couldn't hold the position for more than a few seconds. Bearing all that in mind, he'd stayed huddled on his bed for a while and wondered what he'd do if he couldn't use his bow anymore. He didn't want to be _useless_. Luckily, before he'd allowed himself to become _too_ miserable, he had been distracted by the sounds of Clary doing battle with the finicky microwave (which refused to perform unless its buttons were pressed in exactly the right order), and went to help her before she got too frustrated and flung it out the window.

"I was thinking," Magnus's voice disrupted his thoughts, "you might benefit from some kind of physical therapy." He paused and considered what he'd just said. "Do Shadowhunters even _have_ that?"

"We're a little backwards, but we're not _that_ backwards." Severe bodily injuries weren't uncommon among Shadowhunters, and they'd developed the ability to treat them a long time ago. They were still pretending there was no such thing as mental illness, though. Wincing, Alec sat up and rubbed his shoulder.

"Well, it might be something to consider," Magnus said. He lay back against the pillows, stretched out his long legs, tucked his hand behind his head. He looked much too inviting like that, so Alec crawled into his side and flung an arm over his chest.

"You know," Alec murmured, after a while had passed and the slushy mess pounding the windows was starting to slide off in sheets, "you never did tell me exactly why Dominick is trying to kill you."

Magnus heaved a great sigh. "I stole his girlfriend."

"You steal everyone's girlfriends. Most of them don't want to kill you for it." Alec considered what he'd just said, then clarified, "Well, I'm sure they do, but they either don't go through with it or don't kill a bunch of other people first."

"True, true," Magnus mused. "I don't think that's what this is about, to be honest. We…." He fluttered a hand, sighed, and twined his fingers into Alec's hair. "He moved here about thirty years ago, then left a decade later. He didn't live far from here. I met him, because I meet everyone sooner or later, and thought he was all right – not too swift, perhaps, but all right.

"It wasn't until I'd gotten to know him better that I realized how _greedy_ he was, even for a warlock. I've never met a man so prone to jealousy. And everything he coveted – looks, power, friendship, money, influence with the Clave, et cetera – I _had_. Not to make myself sound arrogant."

"No, of course not," Alec said, and Magnus smiled.

"Anyway, it's not like there was some massive battle wherein I defeated him and cast him from the city. He just resented me, and when I got sick of it, he informed me that someday he would take everything I had before killing me. It was a bit cartoon-villain, really. Although he did try to blow up my apartment. He left not long after that, and I think the entire Downworld breathed a sigh of relief, because there were very few people who liked him. Does that answer your question?"

"Well enough." It seemed like a bit of a shaky reason to want to murder someone, but Alec knew all too well what jealousy did to a person. "One more thing. Sometimes it's kind of like you're a little… nonchalant about so many people getting killed."

"Not at all," Magnus said, and he smiled, immeasurably sadly. "I'm just used to everyone dying before I do."

Alec had nothing to say to that. He traced the lines of Magnus's ribs until the warlock broke the silence. "Just so you know, I have a lot of work to do tomorrow, so I won't be home much."

"Okay," Alec said. "Be careful, would you?" It had been quiet for the past few days, and nobody else had turned up dead yet, but he couldn't rid himself of the persistent fear that Magnus would die and there'd be nothing he could do… or the irritating suspicion that they were _missing_ something. That had been scraping at his mind since he'd been stabbed and he had no idea what had inspired it.

Magnus's hand feathered though Alec's hair. "I will," he murmured. His eyes were closed.

Alec didn't have to wait long until the warlock was asleep, and then he touched his cheek, running his fingers along the sharp angles of Magnus's face. There had to be some kind of law against being _that_ beautiful, he thought. He smoothed his thumb across Magnus's lower lip, then dropped his hand and sighed.

Magnus had said warlocks were avaricious, possessive beings. Well, Alec wasn't a warlock, but he'd be _damned_ if he let anyone touch the best thing that had ever happened to him. He leaned over Magnus to turn out the light, pulled the blankets over them both, and settled in to sleep.

* * *

Reviews are quite appreciated! :)


	4. Chapter Four

**Avarice**

**Disclaimer: **_The Mortal Instruments _belongs to Cassandra Clare, not me.

**Warnings: **As a blanket warning for the whole fic, there's one mention of theoretical suicide, and one veiled reference to something that could be either suicide or self-harm.

**Notes: **Huzzah, the final chapter! I think it's a bit weirdly paced, but this was supposed to be a one-shot, so… Again, please do forgive the action scene, they are not my forte.

Small reference to Understanding in here. Also, ending fatigue like you wouldn't believe – I will never try to write 34,000 words in five days again.

* * *

Sunday mornings had been sort of special when Alec was younger. That was the one day of the week when he got up while his mother made breakfast, rather than dragged himself out of bed at five a.m. to get the stuffing beaten out of him by Jace and Isabelle. He didn't have to pretend to listen as Hodge attempted to explain for him for the fiftieth time why there were suddenly letters in his numbers (Alec had never been any good at math, and he thought algebra was just a vile torture device). He even had one distant, grainy memory from that particular Sunday when his sister was born, when he'd stared, fascinated, at this squirming pink thing in his mother's arms and let her gum his finger, then lost interest and wanted to go play with his cat.

Now, Sundays were just like every other morning. He stumbled out of his room at almost noon – he'd left Magnus's place around six a.m., sore, tired, but happy – and meandered down the hall, yawning and pushing his wet hair off his face and rubbing his shoulder just to make sure it was still in one piece. He crashed into Jace, who looked about as awake as Alec felt, outside the kitchen. "What day is it?" Jace mumbled, blinking owlishly.

"The sixteenth." Alec's brain was still in the shower, but he'd been keeping careful track of the date. Sometime tonight, it would be five days since Raven had been killed. There hadn't yet been another body. Suddenly feeling very conscious, he took out his phone and sent Magnus a text message, just to make sure he was still all right.

"Ugh," Jace said intelligently. "There'd better be something in here besides your sister's wretched culinations…." He found a box of Lucky Charms in the cabinet. There were _always_ Lucky Charms in the Institute, and Alec couldn't figure out for the life of him who kept buying them.

"I don't think 'culinations' is a word."

"Nonsense," Jace said. "There has to be _some_ term for her poisonous inventions. Remember the Vomit Casserole?"

Alec did his absolute best not to. "Jace, I'd like to be able to eat."

"I don't think the microwave's ever recovered." Jace gave the appliance a loving pat. He then dropped the subject, thankfully, and fetched bowls from the cabinet. "How's your shoulder?"

"Fine," Alec said shortly.

"That bad, huh?" Seating himself at the island, Jace gave Alec a look he couldn't place – and for a moment, he was afraid his brother was going to start asking questions he would not be able to answer. He didn't think Jace would let it go as easily as his mother did when Alec told him that there was nothing they could do about the dead warlocks right now. But maybe Jace understood what Alec was going through a little better than Alec thought he did, because he just dumped some cereal into a bowl and started eating.

Magnus texted back about an hour later, reassuring Alec of his continued existence and complaining about the nixie he was trying to heal. Alec was relieved, but Magnus being busy meant he ran into a problem – he was _bored_.

Normally, Alec spent about ten hours per week in the garden behind the Institute, shooting at various targets and making sure he didn't lose his edge (and that number had only dropped off _slightly_ since he'd gotten a boyfriend). It wasn't work for him so much as relaxation – he had to stay calm, block everything else out, and focus completely on drawing the bow, aiming, and hitting the target. Even when he was pretending that target was someone's head, it was a good way for him to separate himself from his emotions for a while. But now he didn't have that – his shoulder wouldn't permit him to so much as budge the bowstring. He was beginning to feel twitchy and on edge, despite the exhaustion that still dogged him.

He wandered into his bedroom, picked up a book, then put it down after seven pages. He texted Magnus again. He couldn't join the sparring session Isabelle and Clary had initiated, but from the looks of it, that was a bit of a disaster anyway. He took a nap, which ended poorly. Alec _knew_ half of the reason he couldn't sit still was out of sheer nervousness, and, after he'd restlessly circled the library four times, his mother got annoyed and told him to sit down or leave. "You're driving me insane," she said. "Go _do_ something."

Alec's first thought was _I can't, Magnus is working_, but there were absolutely no circumstances under which he would say that to his mother. He threw himself into a chair in front of the fireplace and said, "I can't use my bow. I physically cannot draw the bowstring and still get my arm back far enough to be able to shoot anything."

Her attention flickered from the massive book she was paging through to him and back. "I see you've elevated sulking to an art form."

"I'm not _sulking_." Talking to his mother was almost as bad as talking to his father occasionally. "I'm _complaining_ because I can't use my arm properly and I wake up and I'm afraid it's not there anymore. There's a difference."

"Mhm. Are you going to keep complaining, or do you want to know what I think?"

Derailed, Alec said, "Um," and blinked at her until she spoke again.

"I think you nearly lost your arm and it traumatized you a little."

"What –" He wasn't _traumatized_. How weak did she think he was? "I'm not traumatized. It's just inconvenient, and another damn thing to lose sleep over –"

His mother raised an eyebrow. "What _else_ are you losing sleep over?"

"Notwhat you _think_," Alec said immediately, and then realized he shouldn't have – if he'd let her believe that he wasn't sleeping because he and Magnus were having wild sex all hours of the night, then the conversation would be over. But Maryse had always been very good at prying without sounding like she was prying, and he'd walked right into it. "_Dammit_." He slumped against the back of the chair, rubbed his eyes, and stamped down the odd urge to laugh. He really wasn't all that bright at times.

"Do you know what it's like to dream about people dying practically every night?" he eventually asked, quietly, staring into the cold fireplace.

He heard the heavy book close, heard her sigh. "Of course I do."

Alec sank further into the squishy armchair. "I don't know how to make it stop," he whispered.

"Time," Maryse said simply. "You're eighteen years old, Alexander. You were almost killed by a Greater Demon, you were in a few _violent_ battles, and you lost your brother, all within a few months." He finally looked at her at that, because it was the first time she'd even indirectly mentioned Max within his earshot. "If you _weren't_ bothered by any of that, I would be concerned."

"Oh," Alec said faintly. He'd half-expected her to tell him to suck it up and get over it already… though that might have been a tad hypocritical. He just wasn't used to having his feelings validated. "All right."

She was still gazing at him with that expression, the one she had used on Isabelle when she came home drunk and Jace when he'd talked about avenging his father's murder and Alec when he'd never talked to anyone. It was both maternal concern and sheer maternal exasperation. "Have you ever told anyone about this?"

"Not exactly," Alec muttered against his palm, "but Magnus woke me up once and I broke his nose, so he's kind of aware."

She was quiet for a very long moment before saying, "You don't have to handle everything alone, you know."

"I used to," he snapped, then instantly felt bad when her fingers twitched – it was as much as she'd ever let herself flinch. He went back to studying the crumbling brick on the fireplace. "The other day, while I wasn't totally conscious – what did I say to Dad?"

"Nothing he didn't deserve to hear," Maryse said in the tone she reserved for his father and the rats that Church sometimes dragged in. "Don't worry about it."

Alec did worry about it, because as much as his father tended to frustrate him, he didn't want to alienate him further, but he understood that the topic was closed. He sat in the library for a few minutes longer. His mother had returned to her reading, and he was beginning to feel antsy again, so he soon got up and left the room to check on Magnus via text message. There was still a warlock out there trying to kill his boyfriend. Maybe he didn't have to handle _everything_ alone, but this, he did.

* * *

Ten p.m. found Alec in the exact same place he'd been since dinner: facedown on his bed, contemplating dying. He wasn't planning on killing himself or anything, he was just feeling the slow progression of boredom-induced brain death. How had he survived before he met Magnus? The Institute was _tragically_ dull, what with Clary and Jace sucking face all the time and Isabelle usually off gallivanting with Simon, and since Alec had finished all of the books in the library when he was fifteen, he didn't even have anything new to read.

The boredom was almost tolerable, though. What wasn't was the fear.

Magnus had finally called and told Alec to stop texting him around seven o'clock. "I know you're concerned," he'd said gently, "but when I have to stop working to answer you, it just makes everything take longer. The sooner I finish, the sooner I can go back to my nice, safe, thoroughly-warded house. Okay?"

"Okay," Alec had muttered, feeling like a scolded child. He'd kept his nerves to himself since then. Despite Magnus's reassurances, though, he still kept thinking that if Dominick couldn't get to Magnus, he'd probably just go after someone else. And there was a tiny part of him that almost _wanted_ that, just so he'd have an excuse to get the Conclave involved and could stop feeling so damn helpless.

He sighed deeply and turned his head to look out the window. Sure, _now_ it was snowing.

Alec got up, simply because lying around lethargically wouldn't get anything accomplished and it was making his shoulder ache. He started journeying towards the kitchen, but his feet had other ideas – a minute later, he found himself standing in front of a nondescript wooden door.

When he opened it and walked inside, he had a curious sensation of having just stepped back in time.

Nothing in his brother's bedroom had been touched. He almost expected to find Max in bed, glasses askew, because he always forgot to take them off – or sitting at his desk, writing a letter to some little girl in Alicante he always insisted wasn't his girlfriend. But Max wasn't there, he was a tiny urn of ashes in a cold tomb on the other side of the ocean. Alec felt sick. He forced himself to keep going, though, stopping in the middle of the room. It would be so much easier if he could do what his parents did and just pretend that a boy who liked comic books and climbing trees and who wanted to be an even better Shadowhunter than Jace had never been alive at all.

He stared at the model seraph blade Max had fought imaginary monsters with, the overfull bookshelf, the stuffed lion almost hidden under the blankets. Something on the nightstand caught his eye, and he slowly went over to get a better look. Max had been keeping a small wooden bowl of marbles next to his bed – for what purpose, Alec had not an inkling, but they were kind of pretty. And dusty, he noticed when he picked a few up and let them roll into the center of his palm.

Wait, he thought. Marbles….

"What are you doing?"

Alec ignored Isabelle, preoccupied with the objects in his hand and the realization that was clawing at his brain, begging to be understood. "Do you have a map?" he said.

"Of…?"

"Brooklyn," Alec said, dumping the marbles back into the bowl and turning around. Isabelle was standing just outside the doorway, arms crossed over her chest, clutching her elbows tightly.

"No, I don't," she said. "Mom and Dad might."

Alec nodded, brushed past her on his way out, left her staring into Max's unoccupied room. He normally would've tried to say something comforting, but his thoughts were already racing and picking up speed. He made it to the library, stopped, and then moved on – his mother was still in there and he needed someone who wouldn't ask any questions. So he kept going down the hall until he reached the office, opening its door without knocking. "Do you have a map of Brooklyn?"

His father looked up from whatever he was writing. After a moment, during which he most likely got over his surprise that his son was talking to him for the first time in five days, he bent down and rummaged through a drawer, then held out a map. Alec snatched it from his hand and unfolded it, spread it over the desk with complete disregard for whatever his father had been doing, and plucked a pencil from the jar.

Wracking his brain, he leaned over the map. The first two warlocks had been killed in places he was peripherally familiar with. He circled their general locations. Ophelia had died behind Flannery's house – if he recalled correctly, Flannery was that Irish half-fairy/half-human whose apartment he'd been to once when Magnus had dragged him along on a job. Alec had spent a very uncomfortable hour avoiding her Akita (he didn't like dogs). He circled that block as well. Raven's body had been found in Bensonhurst, and he was intimately familiar with the alley where Rico had been attacked.

When he made an educated guess and marked one last area, one right around the street where Magnus lived, he glanced over his handiwork and saw, with a mix of triumph and horror, that the six circles did indeed form the points of a hexagon. It wasn't just about why the warlocks were being killed, it was about _where_. Dominick was trying to form a conductor. But it didn't center on Magnus's house, as he'd originally thought – Magnus might be a target, but he did not seem to be _the_ target. Alec tapped the pencil point against the group of buildings in the middle of the hexagon. "Who lives here?" he muttered to himself.

He abruptly remembered where he was and that his father was staring at him like he had lost his mind. "I need to borrow this," Alec said, scooping up the map and taking off without waiting for permission. He yanked his phone out of his pocket, dialed, and felt his heart sink into his stomach when Magnus didn't pick up. Hoping he was just disregarding Alec's call and not _dead_, Alec waited for the voicemail and said, "Magnus, call me back when you get this. It's important."

Isabelle had vanished when Alec strode back down the hall. Max's door was closed again. Alec shut himself into his own bedroom, dropped the map on his bed, and scrubbed at his face with his hands. If he had to choose, he would say Dominick was going back to the vacant lot first. No one had died there, and if Alec were him, he would want to be as powerful as possible before trying to kill Magnus, who had proved himself to be one hell of an asset in a fight. He'd try there and then go on to Magnus's apartment. And if Magnus didn't call him back, Alec was going to strangle him with his bow.

His train of thought screeched to a halt there – his bow. No matter how dire the situation, there was absolutely no way he'd be able to draw it. Unless….

After painfully struggling into his gear, Alec yanked his closet door open and stared into its murky depths. For all his comments about the state of Magnus's closet, his own wasn't much better, and Jace had once claimed that he'd opened the door and the lack of organization had caused him to have a psychotic break. Alec tried not to think about the possibility of lurking spiders and tossed a few items of clothing aside until he found his _other_ bow. He hadn't touched it in close to a year, but it would do for tonight.

Magnus didn't answer his phone when Alec called again. Alec was tempted to just speed right to his apartment, but he told himself to be rational as he burst out of the Institute and into the freezing air – first of all, Magnus might still be out on a job, and second, the parking lot was directly between the Institute and the apartment. Running around like a chicken with its head cut off would be counterproductive. He willed the subway train to arrive sooner, willed it to move faster, willed _himself_ to not be too late while he bounded up the stairs to the street.

"All right," he said to himself, closing his eyes for a moment. He hoped that Dominick hadn't found any more victims, not just because he didn't want anyone else to die, but also because he didn't fancy another run-in with the warlock. He hadn't yet recovered from their first meeting. Rubbing at his collarbone, heart drumming against his ribs, he turned and set off at a brisk walk towards the alley.

Just as he had last time, he nocked an arrow before peeking around the corner of the building. He had a clear view from one end of the alley to the fence at the other end of the lot, which was a good sign – and suddenly there was a _clink_ of glass from somewhere beyond his sight. It didn't sound like someone being murdered. Still, he crept down the alley, wishing there was a rune that made him invisible to warlocks. His arm trembled slightly as his shoulder spasmed and he gritted his teeth, tightening his grip on the smooth wood beneath his fingers. It was one thing to hold the bow in his right hand and the arrow in his left, it was entirely another to actually draw that way. He wasn't even sure his shoulder would be able to take the strain of bracing the bow. God, this was such a bad idea.

That bad idea only became worse when he didn't pay enough attention to where he was putting his feet and accidentally kicked an empty can.

Time slowed, as it was wont to do when awful things happened. Alec was at the mouth of the alley, and he saw everything at once. He saw the figure crumpled against the back wall of the apartment building. He saw the warlock kneeling on the pavement, leaning over something Alec couldn't make out. He saw the warlock turn, leap to his feet, saw the light glinting off the sword at his hip, saw Dominick's arm sweep in a wide arc….

Alec drew the arrow back and fired. Half an instant later, something hit him across the face so hard that his vision turned white – he yelped and stumbled, blinking rapidly. He could taste blood. Dizzy, his shoulder screaming, he managed to raise his bow again and prepare a second arrow. A shot to the kidney hadn't taken Dominick down the first time, and though the warlock was gasping, clutching the arrow in his stomach, he was still on his feet. Alec loosed the second arrow, but he _missed_, and it only skated across the warlock's shoulder before clattering against the chain-link fence. He was already fumbling for another arrow, and Dominick was raising his hands –

His _hands_ –

_If you put something through my hand like that, you could _cripple_ me, magically speaking._

The third arrow didn't miss its mark. Dominick _howled_. Alec yanked a fourth from his quiver, nocked it, and cursed when his shoulder buckled and he nearly smacked himself in the face with his bow. He tried to draw it again, but that moment had cost him, and Dominick still had one working hand. Rather than go for the sword, like Alec expected, he lifted his hand and snapped his fingers twice in quick succession.

Alec threw himself to the side, quickly enough to avoid the bulk of the brilliant white stream of flames that blazed from the warlock's fingertips, but the fire burnt his arm, left behind a swath of blistered skin in its wake. Gasping, Alec swept up the arrow he'd dropped, fit it to the bow, and drew the string, willing his shoulder to remain steady – and, by some miracle, it did. It held just long enough for the fourth arrow to pierce Dominick's other hand. He felt something tear and bit back a cry, digging his fingers deep into the back of his shoulder.

Dominick made a sound like a wounded whale. His knees shook, then gave, sending him crashing against the fence and sliding to the ground. He was staring in horror at his hands, at the arrows puncturing them. Alec held his position for a moment, clinging to his bow – he wouldn't be able to make another shot – and, when Dominick didn't get up, he took a few steps forward, swiping the back of his hand under his bleeding nose. He spared half a glance for the figure slumped by the wall as he passed, but Alec wasn't stupid enough to take his eyes off Dominick again. If the person was dead, they were dead, and there was nothing he could do about it right now.

Something caught the toe of his boot. Remembering the broken pavement he'd noticed after he'd been stabbed, he knocked a bit of the asphalt away, reached down, and picked up the tiny glass vial partially buried in the dirt. Though it was glowing slightly, he could still tell that the liquid inside was blood. That was _creepy_.

At that very moment, Alec's phone rang. He looked at it just long enough to see the name on the display, flipped it open, and said, "The alley where I was stabbed. Now." He put it back in his pocket and slid another arrow out of his quiver, feeling exposed without a useable weapon at hand.

Surprisingly, Dominick spoke. His tone was peculiarly casual. "I didn't think you'd still be able to shoot that thing."

Alec stared at him for a second. Then, shaking off the confusion – he'd expected screaming and invectives, not what sounded like an attempt at _conversation_ – he said, "The thing about archery is that if you spend all your time shooting from one side, you can screw up your spine. I learned how to shoot with both hands early on so that wouldn't happen." Still holding an arrow, figuring he could stab Dominick with it if the man made any suspicious moves, he slowly sank down onto his heels and looked the warlock over. He had to suppress the urge to yank out the arrows. He'd been taught _very_ firmly to always, always, always collect his arrows after a hunt, because in a real battle, he couldn't just go get more if he ran out. "You were going to kill Magnus."

Dominick said nothing, but the ugly look that flashed over his face told Alec everything he needed to know. "Let me make this clear," Alec said, in a soft, cold tone that even sounded threatening to his own ears. "Magnus is _mine_. If you touch him, you will have me to answer to – and I shot you three times, I can do it again. Stay the hell away from him, got it? You hurt him and I'll hurt you – I don't like other people breaking my toys."

If Dominick was intimidated, he didn't show it. He merely gave Alec an impassive glare. Alec looked at the warlock's hands – they were trembling, coated in blood, the fingers curled inwards like claws – and the arrow protruding from his stomach. Finally, he asked, "Why did you do it?" He didn't get a reply, so he tried a different angle. "The conductor – who lives in the middle? Who were you trying to kill?"

"I wasn't trying to kill her!" Dominick spat. His eyes, which had been cool and resigned, were suddenly alive and wild and blazing with anger. Alec tightened his grip around the arrow. "I was trying to _save_ her."

"Save her?" Alec repeated blankly. "Who…."

He didn't have time to think about it; seconds later, he heard quick footsteps in the alleyway. Alec got to his feet just as Magnus surged into the lot. "About time," Alec said. "Where have you been?"

"Working," Magnus said shortly. He came to a halt at Alec's side, looking down at Dominick with icy contempt. "Well. I'd say this is a shock, but it really isn't." He nudged Alec with his elbow. "How did you know he would be here?"

Alec pulled the hastily-folded map from his back pocket and handed it to Magnus, along with the vial of blood. Magnus looked at them both for a moment, shook his head, and said, "Unbelievable." He shoved them into his jacket and asked Dominick the same question Alec hadn't gotten an answer to, "Why?"

Thinking Dominick still might not respond, Alec muttered, "There was a girl."

Magnus's expression didn't change, but the corner of his lips curved upwards the slightest bit. "Isn't there always. Marlene, right? Her house is right in the middle of the conductor he was attempting to build."

"He said he was trying to save her –"

"I'm sitting right here," Dominick hissed.

"Save her," Magnus echoed, just as Alec had. He abruptly dropped into a crouch and fixed Dominick with a ferocious glare that Alec was glad not to be the receiving end of. "You killed warlocks, took their power _and_ their blood, and built a giant conductor just so you could _save her_? Have you _completely_ lost your tiny mind? What in the world were you planning to do, pour your life-force into her and kill yourself so she would suffer even longer?"

Flinching like he'd been struck, Dominick snarled, "And you're so _virtuous_, Bane." Alec did notice that he didn't deny the accusation. Figuring Magnus had this under control, he stepped back and allowed himself to lean against the wall, hugging his right arm against his ribs. "Bring her to me."

"You don't get to make demands," Magnus said, but he did stand up. "Keep in mind, I'm doing this for _her_, not for you. Stay here for a moment, Alec, would you please?" He waved a hand and Dominick gasped, muscles freezing, as a light blue glow settled over his frame and sank right into his skin. "He'll not be able to move."

"Okay," Alec said tiredly. He watched through half-lidded eyes as Magnus created a Portal against the side of the apartment building and wondered, perhaps absurdly, if whoever lived on the other side would notice it. His shoulder was aching so badly that just turning his head hurt.

Magnus vanished through the Portal. When he returned, hardly two minutes later, he was not alone. The young woman with him was small, terribly thin, and looked oddly _shiny_ – it wasn't until she walked by Alec, moving like someone in a dream, that he realized she was covered in flesh-colored scales. It was both bizarre and strangely pretty. She stopped in front of the wounded warlock, fell to her knees, and said, "Dominick."

For a moment, Dominick's expression changed. He looked at her like he simply could not look away, like she was the only thing in the world that had ever mattered. Alec realized, with startling certainty, that he himself probably looked at Magnus the exact same way, and it just seemed _wrong_ on the face of a murderer.

Then Marlene started shouting.

Startled, Dominick jerked back, the fence rattling where his head struck it. Alec had no idea what she was shrieking, but he suspected it wasn't printable in _any_ language. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Magnus lean down to inspect Dominick's victim, then shake his head and straighten up. _Damn_.

"Um," Alec muttered when five minutes had elapsed and Marlene showed no sign of slowing down, "How long…."

"Oh, this is nothing," Magnus said breezily, slipping his hands into his pockets and blinking snowflakes off his eyelashes. "I once heard her shout at someone for three-quarters of an hour without repeating a single swear word. It was incredible. But… Marlene?" The woman glanced back at him. "Wrap it up, please."

"Fine." She muttered a few more words in whatever language she'd been speaking. Then she reached out, touched the bloody furrow in Dominick's shoulder where Alec's arrow had clipped him, and murmured, "What did you think you were going to accomplish?"

"You don't have to die," Dominick said, a note of desperation in his voice. "_Listen_ to me, Marlene –"

Marlene slapped him. Alec was pretty sure he heard Magnus snicker. "Are you crazy?" she demanded. "I've been sick for three-hundred and fifty years and I'm a bit tired of it, thank you. There's _nothing you can do_."

"I believe," Magnus offered, "that he was planning to transfer his life-force to you."

"You were – _damn_ you, Michael!" Marlene promptly slapped Dominick again.

Magnus sighed. "I love her so much."

Choosing to ignore that, Alec leaned closer to Magnus and quietly said, "I thought his name was Dominick…."

"That's what he _said_ his name was," Magnus said. "I don't know of many warlocks who weren't rejected by their families for being monsters. We tend to rename ourselves, give ourselves new identities… if he wanted to tell her his real name, that's his prerogative."

"You're not a _monster_," Alec muttered, tilting his head back against the wall.

Marlene, who had been silent for a few minutes, suddenly grabbed Dominick by the shirt, ignoring his gasp as the wound in his stomach was jostled. "I don't want your life," she said fiercely. "If you'd bothered to _ask_ me, I would've told you what a stupid fucking idea this was and we could've spent the rest of my time _together_. But _no_, you had to come up with this ridiculous scheme to _save_ me." Blinking rapidly, she put her hand on his cheek. "You idiot. I never wanted you to kill anyone."

"It was for _you_ –" Dominick began despairingly, but she cut him off.

"No. It was for you. I wouldn't have wanted any part of this." Her hand dropped away from his face. "I always knew you were selfish, but this is… I can't, I'm so sorry." She stood up then, turned away from him, walked back over to Magnus with the air of someone who was holding herself together through sheer willpower alone. "I would like to go home now."

"Of course," Magnus said. He put a hand on her back and crooked a finger at Alec. "You too."

Alec looked up at him – _very_ far up, he noticed, and discovered that he'd slid down the wall at some point. "You're just going to leave him here?" he asked. Dominick was still collapsed against the fence, his expression the very picture of hopelessness.

"Don't be silly, I called in the cavalry." Magnus glanced meaningfully over his shoulder. Alec looked past him, saw Alistair standing in front of the alley, and wondered how long he'd been there. "Now, up you get."

Alec struggled to his feet. Magnus wound his other arm around his shoulders and led them both into the alley, past Alistair, who began walking towards Dominick with slow, deliberate steps. "Marlene!" Dominick cried, but though her hands clenched, Marlene did not look back at him, and a moment later he was out of sight.

* * *

Magnus had dumped Alec onto a couch with strict instructions not to move until he returned, then left to take Marlene home. Alec laid there just long enough for the white spots dancing in front of his eyes to vanish. He couldn't stay still with adrenaline continuing to sizzle through his veins, so he got up and wandered around the apartment a few times, eventually coming to a stop in the kitchen.

"Out," he said to Chairman Meow, who was sleeping in the sink. The cat gave him an affronted look and didn't budge. Alec went to pick him up and only then realized he was still clutching an arrow. Almost reluctantly, he set it down, scooped Chairman Meow up with his working arm, left him on the table, and opened the tap. His nose had long since stopped bleeding, so he scrubbed his dirty face until the water came away clean. Chairman Meow complained about the horrible way he'd been treated. Alec ignored him. Drying his face on a dishtowel sporting a smiling onion, he turned off the faucet, took three steps, and dropped into a chair, letting his head fall back.

He thought he might have dozed off for a while. Some time had certainly passed when the slam of the front door alerted him to Magnus's return. Alec did not have the energy to get up and greet him. He didn't have to, as it turned out, because Magnus strolled into the kitchen a second later. He was carrying things – in one hand, he held a few arrows, which Alec took as they were held out to him. When he opened his other hand, four glowing glass bottles of blood clinked onto the table.

"It's so obvious, now, isn't it?" Magnus said wearily. "I can't _believe_ I didn't realize what he was doing. How did you _know_?"

Alec shrugged, which was not a very good idea considering the amount of pain he was in. "I was looking at Max's marbles."

Confusion, then comprehension, dawned on Magnus's face. He stripped off his damp jacket and threw it over a chair. "Are you hurt?"

"I can't lift my arm."

"Take off your shirt," Magnus instructed, coming around the table.

Alec glanced at his gear and put in the effort to roll his eyes. "I can't do that either."

"Right… I'll fix this later." Magnus once again magically split the fabric, tearing the sleeve away and exposing Alec's shoulder, and began poking. "I _told_ you this was going to happen if you used your bow."

"I drew with the other hand," Alec protested weakly.

"I don't care if you drew it with your goddamn –"

Alec decided this was a good point to cut in, _before_ Magnus started ranting about how Alec was an idiot who never listened to proper medical advice and completely disregarded the fact that he himself wasn't a doctor. "Could he really have given Marlene his life?"

"In a manner of speaking," Magnus said, jabbing Alec's collarbone and sending a flare of pain across his chest. "It's… essentially a massively amplified version of the spell I've used to borrow energy from you before. It's one of the most difficult spells known to our kind, and if I'm correct – which I usually am – there's only one warlock in the city with enough power to pull it off."

"You?" Alec guessed.

"Me. Which explains why he had to kill me for my power. But I may be giving myself too much credit – I can only recall a handful of successful uses of that spell, all by greater warlocks than I, and it's possible that I just wouldn't be able to put enough into it. I suppose he anticipated that and, when he killed the other warlocks, he pulled some of their blood, enchanted it immediately, and began building his conductor. With that, he could concentrate and amplify _my_ power and he'd have a much better chance of performing the spell properly. It's brilliant, really, I didn't think he had it in him."

"Oh." There were so many other questions crowding Alec's thoughts, but he was _beyond_ exhausted. His shoulder had gone pleasantly numb, thanks to Magnus's ministrations, and he slouched in the chair. This seemed like a good time to collapse gracelessly on the floor. "I don't feel good. I think I may pass out."

Magnus glanced up at him. "Don't be absurd, you're fine."

Alec took his word for it. He stared outside for a while, impressed by how heavy the snowfall had gotten. His mind drifted and he barely noticed Magnus moving around to his other arm, healing the burn he'd mostly forgotten about already, and trying to tug him out of the chair. "You really ought to get some rest," Magnus said when Alec didn't budge.

"Hold on," Alec said, rubbing his eyes. As soon as he let Magnus coax him into bed, he knew he wouldn't get any more questions answered. "That warlock – was he dead?"

"The one Dominick was after? Yes. I've no idea who he was. He may have been a recent arrival who didn't get the warning about Dominick being a raving lunatic."

"What about Dominick?"

Magnus's expression closed. "Don't worry about it," he said, again attempting to pull Alec to his feet – but, weary and weakened or not, Alec was still physically capable of holding his own and resisted. "Alec –"

"Whenever someone tells me not to worry about it, it's inevitably something I'm going to worry about." Alec pulled his hand from Magnus's grasp. "Look, just tell me."

Sighing, Magnus gave up and plopped onto the chair next to Alec's. "Yes, he's dead too."

Alec swallowed. "Did I…."

"I imagine the wounds you gave him would've eventually killed him," Magnus said, "but it might've taken a while, and there's always the chance that he could have been able to heal himself. So Alistair..." He paused, then shook his head, smiling ever so slightly. "You know, I think he _may_ have been trying to spare you the guilt. We might just endear you to him yet. Now, remove your behind from that chair, you're going to bed."

This time, Alec allowed himself to be brought to his feet and dragged down the hall. "I," he said, stumbling over a footstool that was mysteriously inhabiting the middle of the floor, "am _really_ tired."

They had a bit of fun getting Alec undressed – not their usual kind of fun, but the sort that came about from Alec barely being able to move one arm and wanting to just crawl into bed fully clothed. Magnus took exception to that and successfully got him down to just boxers and the shirt he'd been wearing beneath his gear (now short most of a sleeve) before Alec swatted him away and fell into a heap on the mattress.

"I'm sorry," he said suddenly while Magnus was changing his own clothes.

Magnus gave him a very odd look. "For what?"

"I kind of did exactly what I wasn't supposed to do." Alec rolled onto his stomach, turning his head so he could face his boyfriend. "Everyone was pretty insistent that I not get involved in this."

"Excuse me, _I_ never said that."

"It was implied."

Magnus lay down next to Alec and breathed the long, slow sigh of someone who'd had a terribly horrid day. "I'm not complaining," he said. "We might not have caught him if you hadn't figured out what he was doing. You saved Rico. You may have saved _me_."

"Are you finally admitting that he had a chance of overpowering you?" Alec mumbled into his pillow.

"Yes, as much as it pains me to do so. I'm not sure how much power the last warlock had, but Alistair insists Raven could, as he said, 'kick my arse from one side of the borough to the other'. I expect he was embellishing, but still."

"Well, I wouldn't have let him hurt you."

"Awww. I'm touched."

Something swelled up inside Alec at that, something wild and fierce he couldn't name, and before he could think about what he was doing, he'd swung a leg over Magnus and forced himself upright to straddle his hips. Magnus merely blinked, lips quirking up. Alec leaned down and kissed him so hard their teeth clicked together painfully. "You're mine," he whispered against Magnus's mouth, "okay, you're _mine_. I wasn't going to let him touch you."

Magnus laughed, laced his fingers together at the back of Alec's neck. "You're starting to sound like a warlock," he murmured.

"You belong –" Alec breathed between kisses, "– to me – you can't _die _–"

And then Magnus was pushing him back, hands tight on Alec's shoulders, concern written all over his face. "Alec, you need to calm down."

"I _am_ calm."

"No, you aren't. You're shaking." Magnus sat up, keeping Alec in his lap, and wrapped his arms around him.

"I'm –" Alec's voice caught. "I don't –"

Magnus suddenly looked terrified. "_Please_ don't start crying. I don't think I could handle that right now."

"I'm not cry– what are you talking about?" It was like a spell had been broken. Alec sagged against Magnus's chest, panting, heart pounding. Whatever had come over him had receded, leaving him feeling weak and shivery. "Wow, that was weird. Sorry."

"It's all right." Magnus's thumb swept back and forth over the top of Alec's spine. "I think we both can agree it's been a rough two weeks. You're probably just a tad overwhelmed. Call it a delayed reaction."

"Mmf," Alec mumbled, running his tongue along his teeth to make sure he hadn't chipped any. "Remind me not to kiss you that hard." He squirmed until Magnus let go and then flopped bonelessly onto the mattress again, uninterested in holding himself up any longer.

Magnus tossed a few blankets over him. "Noted. Now sleep."

"I don't want to sleep. I have nightmares." It was the first time Alec had actually said the words aloud. He found it curiously freeing.

"I know. You punched me once and broke my perfectly straight nose," Magnus said sourly.

"I hate to break this to you," Alec told him, burrowing into the blankets, "but you lie. Your nose has never been perfectly straight."

"Yet again, you're impugning my honor."

"Shut up." Alec grabbed a fistful of Magnus's shirt and yanked him down. "If I have to sleep, so do you."

Magnus draped an arm over Alec's back, pressed his nose into his hair. "Everything's going to be fine now," he said quietly. His breath was hot against Alec's ear. "It's over. It's over because of _you_. Just try to think about that instead of whatever's scaring you into breaking my almost-perfectly-straight nose. It's over."

* * *

Alec gave the snow crunching under his boots a dirty look as he pulled another arrow from the quiver lying on the bench. _Why_ had he wanted it to snow? There were fifteen inches of the stuff, the entire city had ground to a halt trying to deal with it all, and it hadn't melted in four days because the temperature had been about three and a half degrees the entire time. Talk about being careful what you wished for, he thought grumpily, lifting his bow.

The arrow hit the yellow ring of the target on the other side of the garden, much to his frustration. He hadn't realized how poor his aim was when he shot left-handed. Considering it something of a miracle that he'd managed to hit Dominick's hands at all, he dropped down onto the bench, rubbing his shoulder. It was still stubbornly refusing to move properly despite Magnus's efforts, but the pain had diminished enough that he could at least practice again – though only with a very old bow that boasted a draw weight of about twenty pounds. He was almost embarrassed to be using it. Still, at least then he could shoot for a little while until his shoulder began to twinge.

He looked over at the back door when it clattered open. His mother stepped out, squinting in the bright glare off the snow, and walked over. "I see that's going well for you," she said, eying the cluster of arrows in the target.

"Yeah, it's all right… I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner."

"That's because you were sulking."

"Maybe a bit," Alec admitted. He set the bow aside and leaned back against the fence.

"How's your shoulder doing?" Maryse asked after a moment.

"Well… it doesn't hurt quite so much, unless I try to move my arm forwards or backwards – and I still can't lift my arm above my shoulder." He fiddled with the zipper of his jacket. "I think it was getting better, but I kind of made it worse the other night."

His mother sighed. "I don't know whether I should kill you or just ground you for the rest of your natural life." She lifted the bow and looked it over. "I'm glad it all worked out – although I suspect if it had been anyone but _you_ interfering in Downworld affairs, there would be quite a bit more trouble. I know you're not particularly interested in politics, but I shouldn't need to tell you that you're in a precarious position. You could accidentally disrupt Shadowhunter-Downworlder relations if you aren't careful." Alec nodded. "However –" She grabbed an arrow. "If you're ever again in such a situation like you were last week, I expect you'll still do the right thing and keep making me proud."

She fit the arrow to the string, pulled it back, and let go. It struck so close to the edge of the target that it wasn't even in any of the colored rings.

"If you were trying to make a point there –" Alec started.

"Be quiet," she said, but mildly. "I haven't picked up a bow in eight years. Once you were better than I was, I decided that was the time to stop." She handed the bow back and turned towards the Institute, wrapping her coat around herself. "Don't stay out too long, it's below freezing out here."

Alec watched her go. Then, smiling to himself, he got up and went to pull the arrows from the target.

Later, after he'd showered and was getting dressed, he yanked his jeans on and noticed something papery in one of the pockets. It turned out to be the map of Brooklyn he'd borrowed. He was half-tempted to just hang onto it – the thought of initiating conversation with his father was always a vaguely frightening prospect – but he didn't really need it. So, once he'd put on a shirt (he'd borrowed a couple of Magnus's less ostentatiously-colored button-downs, as they were easier to get over his shoulder), he took it down the hall and knocked on the office door.

"Come in," his father said.

Alec took a deep breath, opened the door, and walked inside, holding out the map. "Here."

Robert glanced from it to Alec. "You wrote all over it," he said. "You can keep it."

"It was in pencil, it _erases_," Alec said, perhaps more irritably than he meant to, but he couldn't quite figure out whether his father was genuinely annoyed or just stating a fact.

Without replying, his father took the map from Alec's hands, then made the mistake of trying to unfold it. Alec had been in a hurry when he left the Institute and had just crumpled it up before jamming it into his pocket, and Magnus had folded it arbitrarily before giving it back to Alec, so it had turned into a piece of complicated origami. Robert looked up, eyebrows rising. "I can't fold a map, okay?" Alec blurted. He spun around and headed for the door.

Then he froze in his tracks when his father said, "Alexander." As badly as Alec wanted to keep going and make his escape before any blow-ups occurred, he slowly turned around. "I..." Robert cleared his throat, tapped the map against the desk, tossed it into a drawer without any more attempts to flatten it out. "I think I owe you an apology."

"Um," Alec said blankly. Of all the things he had expected, that was not it.

"I'm not sure how conscious you were after you'd been injured," his father said. "But you woke up at one point and told me – and I quote – 'every time you talk to me I have to get drunk so I can forget how much you make me hate myself'."

"Did I really?" Alec said, a bit dazed. "I don't – I mean, that's a little exaggerated. I've only gotten drunk because of you twice. Maybe three times."

Judging by his father's expression, that hadn't been quite as reassuring as he'd intended it to be. At the same time, some part of him was pleased with his semi-conscious self – it wasn't like he'd said anything that wasn't true.

"Be that as it may," Robert continued, "I… hadn't realized I was having that effect on you." He sighed, rubbed a hand over his beard. "My father raised me to parrot all the beliefs he'd been brought up with. I knew they were outdated, but until recently I didn't know exactly _how_ outdated. And I suppose… I haven't been a very good father to you lately."

This was the most uncomfortable conversation Alec had been apart of since he was thirteen and Hodge had tried to give him and Jace some sort of sex talk. Not only was Hodge not the best person for the job, as they both suspected he'd never actually _had_ a whole lot of sex, but Jace was unable to stop making lewd comments and Alec spent the entire time trying to work out how much force he'd need to break the library window and throw himself to his death.

"It's –" Alec began, then stopped. He couldn't really say 'it's okay', because it _wasn't_, but this was the first time in months that he and his father had talked to each other without anyone getting angry, and Robert was actually making an attempt not to be prejudiced. He was afraid to ruin that. "It's not like I _wanted_ to be gay," he finally said, "but I _am_, and there's nothing I can do about it, so I might as well get used to it and be happy anyway and stop caring what everyone else thinks."

The look his father gave him was _almost_ unreadable, but Alec caught a flicker of something that looked like sadness before it was gone. "I just don't want everything to be harder for you."

Alec had absolutely no idea what to say to that. He gaped at his father for a moment, floundering for words, found none, and just nodded. Then he turned and headed for the door, but once again didn't make it that far. "Wait a minute," Robert said.

When he turned back around, his father was gesturing at the chair by the desk. "Sit. There's something else I want to talk to you about…."

* * *

"You're brooding again," Magnus declared, waving a jar of what looked like tiny eyeballs in Alec's direction. "What have I said about brooding in my den?"

"I'm not brooding."

"What do you call that, then?"

Alec shrugged. He was sprawled lengthwise across the couch, one leg hooked over the back, left arm dangling off the cushions. "Uncomfortable," he said, "but I'm too lazy to move."

Magnus flicked his wrist, sending the jar off to god-knows-where. Alec really hoped it didn't end up in the fridge again. He hated finding body parts between the milk and the orange juice. "I can assist with that," Magnus said, coming to stand in front of the couch, "but you'll have to tell me what's on your mind."

Rolling his eyes, Alec swung his leg off the back and sat up. "Never mind, I fixed it myself." He tugged on a thread that was escaping the ragged cuff of his jeans and said, "Listen, there's something I need to tell you… yesterday I found out my father's going back to Alicante right after Christmas."

"Ah, Alicante," Magnus said, seating himself next to Alec. "Most likely the only capital city in the world without its own Starbucks."

"Yet," Alec said darkly.

"You're just mad about that barista who yelled at you once."

"I was _twelve_!" Alec exclaimed, flinging his hands up. "Do you know how difficult it was for me to talk to people I didn't know when I was twelve? I'm not even sure what I _did_. And then she yelled at me again because I was standing there trying to figure out what her problem was and I was blocking the line. Also, their coffee is disgusting," he added. "Anyway, as I was saying… he's going to Idris for a couple of weeks, and I'm going with him."

Magnus looked surprised at the impending separation, but not upset. "What for?"

"I told my mother that I still can't move my shoulder that much," Alec said. He turned, stretched his legs over Magnus's lap, and leaned against the side of the couch. "And she came to the same conclusion you did – so I'm going to Alicante to see some physical therapist she knows and we'll see if that helps any."

"Good." Magnus ran his finger around a hole in the knee of Alec's jeans.

"You're okay with it?"

"As long as you remember to write to me so I can tell you all about my fabulous adventures with my long-lost, devastatingly handsome accountant ex-boyfriend."

"Only if you're telling me how you drop-kicked him out the window," Alec said, and Magnus laughed.

"I suppose I'll just have to get myself invited into the city. Really, Alec, I wouldn't be angry with you over something like that. Besides, you're still coming to my Christmas party, aren't you? 'No' is not an option here, by the way."

Right, the Christmas party. Alec wondered if he could contract the bubonic plague before Christmas Eve. "For twenty minutes," he bargained, "and then I'm locking myself in the bedroom. And if anyone gropes me, I reserve the right to rip their hand off, shove it down their throat, and throttle them."

"Do you really need to suffocate _and_ strangle them?" Magnus asked, then held up his hands placatingly when Alec glared. "All right, it's a deal."

"Good." Nothing else was said for a while. Magnus kept rubbing small circles on Alec's knee, and Alec gazed at the muted television with unfocused eyes and thought about sleeping. Though he'd mostly recovered from all the recent exertion and energy-draining, he still tired much quicker than he was used to. At least he was sleeping a little better now.

He'd almost decided to take a nap when Magnus said, "Was that all that was bothering you?"

Alec opened his mouth to say it was. Then he closed it again, considering – it hadn't _really_ been what he was 'brooding' about, and while Magnus would drop it if he said yes, hadn't he been told not long ago that he didn't have to handle everything alone?

Dammit, Mom, he thought. "I was thinking about that warlock," he said, "the one Dominick killed before I got there –"

"Ohhhhh," Magnus said, stretching out the word for so long that Alec smacked him on the arm. "How did I know your guilt complex would rear its ugly head sooner or later?" He sighed and ran his fingers through his spiked hair. "You know, I'd been thinking about the likelihood of this conversation the other day, and I was _going_ to make a Power Point about all the reasons you shouldn't feel guilty, but Alistair came over and touched my laptop and the hard drive melted. I almost uninvited him to my party, but then I thought, when else will I have such a prime opportunity for revenge?" A worryingly evil expression crossed his face for an instant, and then he said, "Where was I? Right, so you're just going to have to hear the oral report."

Amused, Alec said, "Okay, go ahead."

"That werewolf girl you were friends with when you were younger," Magnus began, "and your brother, and that warlock from the other night… do you know what they all have in common?"

"Besides being dead?" Alec said flatly.

Magnus gave him a look. "It wasn't your fault they died."

Alec stared at him, unable to come up with a response, and Magnus touched his cheek. "You can't save everyone," he said gently. "But, given the circumstances, I'm pretty sure you did a damn good job saving who you could – you saved Rico. You saved me from a potentially fatal battle. Hell, Alexander, you even saved Marlene."

"He wasn't going to kill Marlene."

"No, but you saved her from living another few centuries in misery." Magnus started to take his hand away from Alec's face, but Alec grabbed it and laced their fingers together. "The way that spell works, it literally pours one person's life on top of another's. It's not measurable in years, because a warlock could potentially live until the end of the world if they were careful – but Dominick would've died, and Marlene would've continued to live as long as her body could support her. It wouldn't have cured her." He stroked the back of Alec's hand with his thumb. "She's been ill for a very long time," he murmured. "She came to terms with her eventual mortality a long time ago, and I think she was actually glad to have an end in sight. If Dominick had gotten what he'd wanted, that end would have disappeared."

"He loved her," Alec said quietly. "He couldn't bear the thought of her dying."

"I guess not. But he also didn't think about what _she_ wanted."

Alec nodded, rested his head against the back of the couch. "That spell," he said after a few moments had passed, "does it only work on warlocks?"

"It's only been _used_ on warlocks," Magnus said, shifting back and settling his feet atop the coffee table, which was still covered in books. "Like I said, it's so hard to use that only a few people have ever managed it. It might also work on other immortal beings like vampires, but mortals…." He threw Alec a sideways look. "I assume a mortal, given immortality in that way, would _technically_ be able to live forever, but their body would keep aging, since it wasn't _made_ for immortality. After maybe a hundred and fifty years, their body would be so ancient it would be more like a cage."

That thought made Alec shudder. He had enough misgivings regarding getting old without thinking about getting trapped in a crumbling body. "Forget I asked."

"As for us," Magnus said breezily, making Alec look at him, "_I _look old enough to get into most places without being carded, so I think we've got four or five years before we have to worry about anything, hm?"

Four or five years sounded… pretty good, actually.

Alec dozed after that. Magnus had turned the volume on the television back up, since the closed-captioning had devolved into a line of black-and-white gibberish scrolling across the screen. Only catching every third word, Alec tried to figure out if Magnus was watching something very romantic or very violent without opening his eyes. He was about to pick violence when Magnus nudged him and said, "Are you still awake?"

"Barely," Alec murmured.

"Never mind, then."

"No, tell me," Alec said. He forced his eyes back open and blinked until the room sharpened.

"I asked you this already, I know, but…." Magnus flicked his fingers at the television, muting it and ruining Alec's game. "Are you happy?"

Sighing, Alec looked down at their intertwined fingers. They'd been doing that a lot lately, especially while they slept – Magnus would take a hold of Alec's right hand, and when Alec woke up in a panic, afraid he'd find that his arm just _wasn't there_, all he had to do was realize he could still feel Magnus's fingers in his own and he could fall back asleep quickly. The fact that this was necessary made Alec suspect that maybe his mother was right about him being a bit traumatized. Still, the nightmares were coming less frequently now. "I think 'happiness' might be kind of an abstract concept."

"That's probably true," Magnus said, thoughtfully tapping the television remote against his chin. Alec didn't know why he hung onto the thing. It contained no batteries and Magnus didn't need to push buttons to change the channel.

Although Magnus seemed to have dropped the subject, Alec kept thinking about it. A week ago, he'd been unsure, quick to insist he was happy and then getting caught up in all the reasons he _shouldn't_ be happy. Things had changed since then – he might not have _chosen_ to be a Shadowhunter, given the choice, but making a difference in ways other than mindlessly killing demons wasn't such a bad prospect. He and his father were at least trying to repair their relationship, even if the upcoming trip was likely to be hideously awkward for the both of them. And he thought he could learn to get along with himself – he drove himself crazy sometimes, but Magnus drove him crazy too, and Alec still loved him.

No, his parents weren't going to magically fix their problems. He wasn't going to get his little brother back. There were so many things he wanted but could never have, and he'd just have to learn to get along without them. Avarice, it seemed, was a universal experience rather than a warlock one.

"Hey." Alec poked Magnus's shoulder until the warlock looked at him. "I'm happier than I've ever been in my life."

"That'll do," Magnus said, smiling, and leaned down to kiss him.

* * *

If you got this far, ALL OF THE LOVE. And to think I expected this to top off around fifteen thousand words… oh well. Please review, I'd _so_ like to know what you thought! :D


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